Husband hunters
by Sahora
Summary: Takeda Kagura had left her entire and extremely substantial estate evenly divided between her three goddaughters on condition that each of them married within a year and remained married for a minimum of six months... Will they be able to do it? Inu/Kag, Kou/Aya/ Sesh/Rin
1. Married to a Mistress 1

Hello everybody, here I am with a new story, my first one on English… First of all, I wanna clear a couple of points:

First and the most important in this moment: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.

I read this book this week, actually are 3 mini books in one, and I loved it. I so wanted to adapt it to Inuyasha's anime because it fit just perfectly. If any of you know about any trouble I can get for post this story, please let me know, so I can delete it…

OK, another curious tips before the chapter starts:

This story is located outside Japan ( Most of all in Europe), and it may contain some Italian words. It has not very explicit lemons. It is a long story, divided on 3 stories: Kagome and Inuyasha, Ayame and Kouga, Sesshoumaru and Rin.

I hope you like it as much as me. n.n.

**Chapter 1**

"AND since Toutosai has given me power of attorney over his affairs, I shall trail that little tramp through the courts and ruin her!" Shio Kaede announced with vindictive satisfaction.

Taisho Inuyasha surveyed his late mother's stepsister with no more than polite attention, his distaste concealed, and his brilliant black eyes expressionless. Nobody would ever have guessed that within the last sixty seconds Kaede had made his day by putting him in possession of information he would've paid a considerable amount to gain. Higurashi Kagome, the model dubbed the Ice Queen by the press, the one and only woman who had ever given Inuyasha a sleepless night, was in debt...

"Toutosai spent a fortune on her too!" As she stalked his vast and impressive London office, Kaede exuded seething resentment. "You should see the bills I've uncovered... you wouldn't believe what it cost to keep that little trollop in designer clothes!"

"A mistress expects a decent wardrobe...and Higurashi Kagome is ambitious. I imagine she took Toutosai for everything she could get." Inuyasha stoked the flames of his visitor's outrage without a flicker of conscience.

Unlike most who had witnessed the breakup of the Coulter marriage three years earlier, he had never suffered from the misapprehension that Toutosai had deserted a whiter than white wife. Nor was he impressed by Kaede's pleas of penury. The middle-aged brunette had been born wealthy and would die even wealthier, and her miserly habits were a frequent source of malicious amusement in London society.

"All that money gone for good,"Kaede recounted tight-mouthed. "And now I find out that the little tart got this huge loan off Toutosai as well…"

Imperceptibly, Inuyasha had tensed again. Trollop, tart? Kaede had no class, no discretion. A mistress was a necessity to a red-blooded male, but a whore wasn't. However, Toutosai had broken the rules. An intelligent man did not leave his wife to set up home with his mistress. No Greek male would ever have been that stupid, Inuyasha reflected with innate superiority. Shio Toutosai had made a fool of himself and he had embarrassed his entire family.

"But you have regained what you said you wanted most," he slotted into the flood of Kaede's financial recriminations. "You have your husband back."

The dry reminder made the older woman flush and then her mouth twisted again. "Oh, yes, I got him back after his heart attack, so weak he's going to be recuperating for months! That bitch deserted him at the hospital...did I tell you that? Simply told the doctor to contact his wife and walked back out again, cool as a cucumber. Well, I need that money now, and whatever it takes I intend to get it off her. I've already had a lawyer's letter sent to her…"

'Kaede...with Toutosai laid low, you have many more important concerns. And I assure you that Toutosai would not be impressed by the spectacle of his wife driving his former mistress into the bankruptcy court." From below lush black lashes, Inuyasha watched the woman stiffen as she belatedly considered that angle. "Allow me to deal with this matter, will assume responsibility for the loan and reimburse you."

Kaede's jaw slackened in shock. "You...you will?"

"Are we not family?" Inuyasha chided in his deep, dark, accented drawl.

Slowly, very slowly, Kaede nodded, fascinated against her will. Those incredible golden eyes looked almost warm, and since warmth was not a character trait she had ever associated with Taisho Inuyasha before she was thrown off balance.

The head of the Taisho's clan, and regarded with immense respect by every member, Inuyasha was ruthless, remorseless and coldly self-sufficient. He was also fabulously wealthy, flamboyantly unpredictable and frighteningly powerful. He scared people; he scared people just by strolling into a room. When Toutosai had walked out on his marriage, Inuyasha had silenced Kaede's martyred sobs with one sardonic and deeply unsympathetic glance. Somehow Inuyasha had discovered that her infidelity had come first. Chagrined by that galling awareness, Kaede had avoided him ever since...

Only the greater fear of what might happen to Toutosai's international chain of highly profitable casinos under her own inexpert guidance had driven her to approach Inuyasha for practical advice and assistance. Indeed, just at the moment Kaede could not quite comprehend how she had been led into revealing her plans to destroy Higurashi Kagome.

"You'll make her pay...?" Kaede prompted dry-mouthed.

"My methods are my own," Inuyasha murmured without apology, making it clear that the matter of the loan was no longer her province.

That hard, strikingly handsome face wore an expression that now chilled Kaede. But she was triumphant. Clearly family ties, even distant ones, meant more to Inuyasha than she had ever dreamt. That little trollop would suffer; that was all Kaede wanted.

When he was alone again, Inuyasha did something he had never been known to do before.

He shattered his secretary by telling her to hold all his calls. He lounged indolently back in his leather chair in apparent contemplation of the panoramic view of the City of London. But his eyes were distant. No more cold showers. A sensual smile slowly formed on his well-shaped mouth. No more lonely nights. His smile flashed to unholy brilliance.

The Ice Queen was his. After a three-year-long waiting game, she was finally to become his.

Mercenary and outwardly cold as she was...exquisite, though, indeed so breathtakingly beautiful that even Inuyasha, jaded and often bored connoisseur that he considered himself to be, had been stunned the first time he saw Higurashi Kagome in the flesh. She looked like the Sleeping Beauty of popular fable. Untouchable, untouched...

A grim laugh escaped Inuyasha. What nonsensical imagery the mind could serve up! She had been the mistress of a man old enough to be her grandfather for the past three years. There was nothing remotely innocent about the lady.

But for all that he would not use the loan like a battering ram. He would be a gentleman. He would be subtle. He would rescue her from her monetary embarrassments, earn her gratitude and ultimately inspire her loyalty as Toutosai had never contrived to do. She would not be cold with him. And, in reward, he would cocoon her in luxury, set the jewel of her perfection to a fitting frame and fulfil her every want and need. She would never have to work again. What more could any rational woman want?

Blissfully unaware of the detailed plans being formed on her behalf, Kagome climbed out of the cab she had caught from the train station. Every movement fluid with long limbed natural grace, her spectacular trademark mane of golden hair blowing in the breeze, she straightened to her full five feet eleven inches and stared at her late god mother's home.

Gilbourne was an elegant Georgian house set in wonderful grounds.

As she approached the front door her heart ached and she blinked back tears. The day she had made her first public appearance in Toutosai's company, her godmother, Takeda Kagura, had written to tell her that she would no longer be a welcome visitor here. But four months ago her godmother had come to see her in London. There had been a reconciliation of sorts, only Kagura hadn't said she was ill, hadn't given so much as a hint —nor had Kagome received word of her death until after the funeral.

So somehow it seemed all wrong to be showing up now for a reading of Kagura's last will and testament...and, worst of all, to be nourishing desperate prayers that at the last her godmother had somehow found it within her heart to forgive her for a lifestyle she had deemed scandalous.

In her slim envelope bag Kagome already carried a letter which had blown her every hope of future freedom to smithereens. It had arrived only that morning. And it had reminded her of a debt she had naively assumed would be written off when Toutosai severed their relationship and let her go. He had already taken three irreplaceable years of her life, and she had poured every penny she earned as a model into repaying what she could of that loan.

Hadn't that been enough to satisfy him? Right now she was homeless and broke and lurid publicity had severely curtailed her employment prospects. Toutosai had been vain and monumentally self-centred but he had never been cruel and he was certainly not poor.

Why was he doing this to her? Couldn't he even have given her time to get back on her

feet again before pressing her for payment?

The housekeeper answered the door before Kagome could reach for the bellpush. Her plump face was stiff with disapproval. "Miss Higurashi." It was the coldest of welcomes. "Miss Shuiyiro and Miss Tay are waiting in the drawing-room. Mrs Takeda's solicitor, Mr Mioga, should be here soon."

"Thank you...no, there's no need to show me the way; I remember it well."

Within several feet of the drawing-room, however, not yet ready to face the other two women and frankly nervous of the reception she might receive from one of them, Kagome paused at the window which overlooked the rose garden that had been Takeda kagura's pride and joy. Her memory slid back to hazily recalled summer afternoon tea parties for three little girls. Kagome, Ayame and Rin, each of them on their very best behaviour for Kagura, who had never had a child of her own, had had pre-war values and expectations of her goddaughters.

Qf the three, Kagome had always been the odd one out. Both Ayame and Rin came from comfortable backgrounds. They had always been smartly dressed when they came to stay at Gilbourne but Kagome had never had anything decent to wear, and every year, without fail, Kagura had taken Kagome shopping for clothes. How shocked her godmother would've been had she ever learned that Kagome's father had usually sold those expensive garments the minute his daughter got home again...

Her late mother, Koru, had once been Kagura's companion—a paid employee but for all that Kagura had always talked of her as a friend. Her godmother, however, had thoroughly disliked the man her companion and friend had chosen to marry.

Weak, selfish, unreliable... Higurashi Onigumo was, unfortunately, all of those things, but he was also the only parent Kagome had ever known and Kagome was loyal. Her father had brought her up alone, loving her to the best of his ability. That she had never been able to trust him to behave himself around a woman as wealthy as Takeda Kagura had just been a cross Kagome had had to bear.

Every time Higurashi Onigumo had brought his daughter to Gilbourne to visit he had overstayed his welcome, striving to butter her godmother up with compliments before trying to borrow money from her, impervious to the chill of the older woman's distaste. Kagome had always been filled with guilty relief when her father departed again. Only then had she been able to relax and enjoy herself.

"I thought I heard a car but I must've been mistaken. I wish Kagome would come...I'm looking forward to seeing her again," a female voice said quite clearly.

Kagome twisted in surprise to survey the drawing-room door, only now registering that it was ajar. That had Rin's voice, soft and gentle, just like Rin herself.

"That's one thrill I could live without," a second female voice responded tartly. "Kagome, the living doll.."

"She can't help being beautiful, Ayame"

Outside the door, Kagome had frozen, unnerved by the biting hostility she had heard in Ayame's cuttingly well-bred voice. So she still hadn't managed to forgive her, and yet what had destroyed their friendship three years earlier had been in no way Kagome's fault.

Ayame had been jilted at the altar. Her bridegroom had waited until the eleventh hour to confess that he had fallen in love with one of her bridesmaids. That bridesmaid, entirely innocent of the smallest instant of flirtation with or indeed interest in the bridegroom, had unfortunately been Kagome.

"Does that somehow excuse her for stealing someone else's husband?"

"I don't think any of us get to choose who we fall in love with," Rin stressed with a surprising amount of emotion. 'And Kagome must be devastated now that he's gone back to his wife."

"If Kagome ever falls in love, it won't be with an ancient old bloke like that," Ayame scorned.

"She wouldn't have looked twice at Shio Toutosai if he hadn't been loaded! Surely you haven't forgotten what her father was like? Greed is in Kagome's bloodstream. Don't you remember the way Onigumo was always trying to touch poor Kagura for a loan?"

"I remember how much his behaviour embarrassed and upset Kagome," Rin responded tautly, her dismay at the other woman's attitude audible.

In the awful pool of silence that followed Kagome wrapped her arms round herself. She felt gutted, totally gutted. So nothing had changed. Ayame was stubborn and never admitted herself in the wrong. Kagome had, however, hoped that time would've lessened the other woman's antagonism to the point where they could at least make peace.

"She is stunningly beautiful. Who can really blame her for taking advantage of that?" Ayame breathed in a grudging effort at placation. "But then what else has Kagome got? I never did think she had much in the way of brains…"

"How can you say that, Ayame? Kagome is severely dyslexic," Rin reminded her companion reproachfully.

Kagome lost all her natural colour, cringing at even this whispered reference to her biggest secret.

The tense silence in the drawing-room lingered.

"And in spite of that she's so wonderfully famous now," Rin sighed.

"Well, if your idea of fame is playing Goldilocks in shampoo commercials, I suppose she is," Ayame shot back crushingly.

Unfreezing, Kagome tiptoed back down the corridor and then walked with brisk, firm steps back again. She pushed wide the door with a light smile pasted to her unwittingly pale face.

"Kagome!" Rin carolled, and rose rather awkwardly to her feet.

Halfway towards her, Kagome stopped dead. Tiny dark-haired Rin was pregnant.

"When did you get married?" Kagome demanded with a grin.

Rin turned brick-red. "I didn't...I mean, I'm not..."

Kagome was stunned. Rin had been raised by a fire-breathing puritanical father. The teenager Kagome recalled had been wonderfully kind and caring, but also extremely prim and proper as a result. Horribly aware that she had embarrassed Rin, she forced a laugh.

"So what?" she said lightly.

"I'm afraid the event of a child without a husband is not something as easily shrugged off in Rin's world as in yours." Ayame stood by the window, her boyishly short auburn hair catching fire from the light behind her, aggressive green eyes challenging en the point.

Kagome stiffened at the reminder that Ayame had a child of her own but she refused to rise to that bait, poor Rin looked strained enough as it was. "Rin knows what I meant…"

"Does she…?" Ayame began.

"I feel dizzy!" Rin announced with startling abruptness.

Instantly Ayame stopped glaring at Kagome and both women anxiously converged on the tiny brunette. Kagome was the more efficient helper. Gently easing Rin down into the nearest armchair, she fetched a footstool because the smaller woman's ankles looked painfully swollen.

Then, noting the untouched tea trolley nearby, she poured Rin a cup of tea and urged her to eat a digestive biscuit.

"Do you think you should see a doctor?" Ayame asked ruefully. "I suppose I was lucky. I was never ill when I was expecting Zia."

"What do you think, Rin?" Kagome prompted.

"I'm fine...saw one yesterday," Rin muttered. "I'm just tired."

At that point, a middle-aged man in a dark suit was shown in with great ceremony by the housekeeper. Introducing himself as Mioga Mitsuki, their godmother's solicitor, he took a seat, politely turned down the offer of refreshment and briskly extracted a document from his briefcase.

"Before I commence the reading of the will, I feel that I should warn you all beforehand that the respective monies will only be advanced if the strict conditions laid down by my late client are met…"

"Put that in English," Ayame interrupted impatiently. Mr Mitsuki removed his spectacles with a faint sigh. "I assume that you are all aware that Mrs Takeda enjoyed a very happy but tragically brief marriage when she was in her twenties, and that the premature death of her husband was a lifelong source of sorrow and regret to her."

"Yes," Rin confirmed warmly. "Our godmother often talked to us about Bankotsu."

"He died in a car crash six months after they married," Kagome continued ruefully. "As time went on he became pretty much a saint in her memory. She used to talk to us about marriage as if it was some kind of Holy Grail and a woman's only hope of happiness."

"Before her death, Mrs Takeda made it her business to visit each one of you. After completing those visits, she altered her will," Mioga informed them in a tone of wry regret. "I advised her that the conditions of inheritance she chose to include might be very difficult, if not impossible for any one of you to fulfill. However, Mrs Takeda was a lady who knew her own mind, and she had made her decision."

Kagome was holding her breath, her bemused gaze skimming over the faces of her companions. Rin wore an expression of blank exhaustion but Ayame, never able to hide her feelings, now looked worried sick.

In the pin-dropping silence, the solicitor began to read the will. Takeda Kagura had left her entire and extremely substantial estate evenly divided between her three goddaughters on condition that each of them married within a year and remained married for a minimum of six months. Only then would they qualify to inherit a portion of the estate. In the event of any one of them failing to meet the terms of the will, that person's share would revert to the Crown.

By the time the older man had finished speaking, Kagome was in shock. Every scrap of colour had drained from her face. She had hoped, she had prayed that she might be released from the burden of debt that had almost destroyed her life. And now she had learnt that, like everything else over the past twenty-two years, from the death of her mother when she was a toddler to her father's compulsive gambling addiction, nothing was going to be that easy.

A jagged laugh broke from Ayame. "You've just got to be kidding," she said incredulously.

"There's no chance of me fulfilling those conditions," Rin confided chokily, glancing at her swollen stomach and looking away again with open embarrassment.

"Nor I..." Kagome admitted flatly, her attention resting on Rin and her heart sinking for her. She should have guessed there would be no supportive male in the picture. Trusting, sweet-natured Rin had obviously been seduced and dumped.

Ayame shot Kagome an exasperated look. "They'll be queuing up for you, Kagome…"

"With my colourful reputation?"

Ayame flushed. "All any one of us requires is a man and a wedding ring. Personally speaking, I'll only attract either by advertising and offering a share of the proceeds as a bribe!"

"While I am sure that that is a purely facetious comment, made, as it were, in the heat of the moment, I must point out that the discovery of any such artificial arrangement would automatically disqualify you from inheriting any part of your godmother's estate," Mioga asserted with extreme gravity.

"You may say our godmother knew her own mind... but Ithink...well, I'd better not say what I think," Ayame gritted, respect for a much loved godmother evidently haltering her abrasive tongue.

Simultaneously, a shaken little laugh of reluctant appreciation was dredged from Kagome.

She was not in the dark. The reasoning behind Kagura's will was as clear as daylight to her. Within recent months their godmother had visited each one of them...and what a severe disappointment they must all have been.

She had found Kagome apparently living in sin with an older married man. She had discovered that Rin was well on the road to becoming an unmarried mother. And Ayame? Kagome's stomach twisted with guilt. Some months after that day of cruel humiliation in the church, Ayame had given birth to a baby. Was it any wonder that the redhead had been a vehement man-hater ever since?

"It's such a shame that your godmother tied her estate up like that," Kagome's friend, Sango, lamented the following afternoon as the two women discussed the solicitor's letter which had bluntly demanded the immediate settlement of Totosai's loan. 'If she hadn't,

all your problems would've been solved."

"Maybe I should have told Kagura the real reason why I was living in Totousai's house...but I couldn't have stood her thinking that I was expecting her to buy me out of trouble. It wouldn't have been fair to put her in that position either. She really did detest my father."

Kagome gave a fatalistic shrug. She had suffered too many disappointments in life to waste time crying over spilt milk.

"Well, what you need now is some good legal advice. You were only nineteen when you signed that loan agreement and you were under tremendous pressure. You were genuinely afraid for your father's life." Sango's freckled face below her mop of graying sandy hair looked hopeful. "Surely that has to make a difference?"

From the other side of the kitchen table, casually clad in faded jeans and a loose shirt, Kagome studied the friend who had without question taken her in off the street and freely offered her a bed for as long as she needed it. Hashimoto Sango was the only person she trusted with her secrets. Sango, bless her heart, had never been influenced by the looks that so often made other women hostile or uneasy in Kagome's company. Blind from birth and fiercely independent, Sango made a comfortable living as a potter and enjoyed a wide and varied social circle.

"I signed what I signed and it did get Dad off the hook," Kagome reminded her.

"Some thanks you got for your sacrifice."

"Dad's never asked me for money since…"

" Kagome...you haven't seen him for three years," Sango pointed out grimly.

Kagome tensed. "Because he's ashamed, Sango. He feels guilty around me now."

Sango frowned as her guide dog, Bounce, a glossy black Labrador, sprang up and nudged his head against her knee, "I wonder who that is coming to the door. I'm not expecting anyone...and nobody outside the mail redirection service and that modelling agency of yours is supposed to know you're here!"

By the time the doorbell actually went, Sango was already in the hall moving to answer it. A couple of minutes later she reappeared in the doorway. "You have a visitor...foreign, male, very tall, very attractive voice. He also says he's a very good friend of yours…"

"Of mine?" Kagome queried with a perplexed frown.

Sango shook her head. "He has to be a good friend to have worked out where you're hiding out. And Bounce gave him the all-over suspicious sniff routine and passed him with honours so I put him in the lounge. Look, I'll be in the studio, Kagome. I need to finish off that order before I leave tomorrow."

Kagome wondered who on earth had managed to find her. The press? Oh, dear heaven, had Sango trustingly invited some sneaky journalist in? Taut with tension, she hurried down the hall into the lounge.

One step into that small cosy room, she stopped dead as if she had run into a brick wall without warning. Smash, crash, her mind screamed as she took a sudden instinctive backward step, shock engulfing her in rolling waves of dis-orientation.

"Kagome... how are you?' Taisho Inuyasha purred as he calmly extended a lean brown hand in conventional greeting.

Kagome gaped as if a boa constrictor had risen in front of her, her heart thumping at manic speed and banging in her eardrums. A very good friend. Had Sango misheard him?

"Mr Taisho…?"

"Inuyasha, please," he countered with a very slight smile. Kagome blinked. She had never seen him smile before. She had been in this arrogant male's company half a dozen times over the past three years and this was the very first time he had deigned to verbally acknowledge that she lived and breathed. In her presence he had talked around her as if she wasn't there, switching to Greek if she made any attempt to enter the conversation, and on three separate occasions, evidently responding to his request, Toutosai had sent her home early in a taxi.

With rock-solid assurance, Inuyasha let his hand drop again. Amusement at her stupefied state flashed openly in his brilliant black eyes.

Kagome stiffened. "I'm afraid I can't imagine what could bring you here...or indeed how you found me…"

"Were you ever lost?" Inuyasha enquired with husky innuendo while he ran heavily lidded heated dark eyes over her lithe, slender frame with extraordinarily insulting thoroughness. "I suspect that you know very well why I am here."

Her fair skin burning, Kagome's sapphire blue eyes shuttered. "I haven't the slightest idea…"

"You are now a free woman."

This is not happening to me, a little voice screeched in the back of Kagome's mind. She folded her arms, saw those temfyingly shrewd eyes read her defensive body language and lowered her arms again, fighting not to coil her striating fingers into fists.

One unguarded moment almost six months ago... Was that all it had taken to encourage him? He had caught her watching him and instantaneously, as if that momentary abstraction of hers had been a blatant invitation, he had reacted with a lightning flash look of primitive male sexual hunger. A split second later he had turned away again, but that shatteringly unexpected response of his had shaken Kagome inside out.

She had told herself she had imagined it. She had almost cherished this arrogant Greek tycoon's indifference to her as a woman. OK, so possibly, once or twice, his ability to behave as if she was invisible had irritated and humiliated her, but then she had seen some excuse for his behaviour, the common herd. What she couldn't understand was why she should be feeling a fierce, embittered stab of stark, disappointment.

"You're trembling...why don't you sit down?" Inuyasha switched into full domineering mode with the polished ease of a duck taking to water and drew up an armchair for her occupancy. When she failed to move, the golden eyes beneath those utterly enviable long inky lashes rested on her in irritated reproof. "You have shadows under your eyes. You have lost weight. You should be taking better care of yourself."

She would not lose her temper; she would tie herself in knots before she exposed her outrage and he recognised her humiliation. How dared he...how dared he land on Sango's doorstep and announce his lustful intentions and behave as if he was awaiting a round of applause? If she spread herself across the carpet at his feet in gratitude, he would no doubt happily take it in his stride.

"Your interest in my wellbeing is unwelcome and unnecessary, Mr Taisho," Kagome countered not quite levelly, and she sat down because she was honestly afraid that if she didn't she might give way to temptation and slap him across that insolent mouth so hard she would bruise her fingers.

He sank down opposite her, which was an instant relief because even when she was standing he towered over her. That was an unusual sensation for a woman as tall as Kagome, and one that with him in the starring role she found irrationally belittling. For such a big, powerfully built man, however, he moved with the lightness and ease of an athlete. He was as dark as she was fair...quite staggeringly good-looking. Spectacular cheekbones, a strong, thin-bladed nose, the wide mouth of a sensualist. But it was those extraordinary eyes which held and compelled and lent such blazing definition to his fantastic bone structure. And there was not a soupcon of softness or real emotion in that hard, assessing gaze.

"Toutosai's wife was planning to take you to court over that loan,' Inuyasha delivered smoothly into the thumping silence.

Kagome's spine jerked rigid, eyes flying wide in shock as she gasped, "How did you find out about the loan?"

Inuyasha angled a broad, muscular shoulder in a light, dismissive shrug, as if they were enjoying a light and casual conversation. "It's not important. Kaede will not take you to court. I have settled the loan on your behalf."

Slowly, her muscles strangely unwilling to do her bidding, Kagome leant forward. "Say that again," she invited shakily, because she couldn't believe he had said what he had just said.

Inuyasha regarded her with glittering gold unfathomable eyes. "I will not hold that debt over you, Kagome. My intervention was a gesture of good faith alone."

"G-good faith..." Kagome stammered helplessly, her voice rising to shrillness in spite of her every effort to control it.

"What else could it be?" Inuyasha shifted a graceful hand in eloquent emphasis, his brilliant gaze absorbing the raw incredulity and shock which had blown a giant smoking crater in the Ice Queen's famed facade of cool. "What man worthy of the name would seek to blackmail a woman into his bed?"

N/A:Well, I checked all the chapter again and corrected almost all the errors on it, specially the text align, dunno what happened there =/

Thank you to Lovesdeep to let me know about the horrors I made on this chapter XD

I'm not sure how to post this chapters… daily? Weekly? Hum… let a review and tell me what do you think.

P.S.: I you are wondering, yes, English is not my birth language, so please be patient with me ok? n.n

See ya on next chapter!


	2. Married to a Mistress 2

CHAPTER TWO

Kagome leapt upright, her beautiful face a flushed mask of fury. "Do you think I am a complete fool?" she shouted at him so loudly her voice cracked.

Unhurriedly, Inuyasha shifted his incredibly long legs and fluidly unfolded to his full height again, his complete control mocking her loss of temper. "With regard to some of your past decisions in life...how frank am I allowed to be?"

Kagome sucked in oxygen as if she was drowning, clamped a hand to her already opening mouth and spun at speed away from him. She was shattered that he had smashed her self-discipline.

As noise filtered through the open window she became dimly aware of the shouts of children playing football somewhere outside, but their voices were like sounds impinging from another world.

"You don't need to apologise" Inuyasha drawled in a mocking undertone. "I've seen your temper many times before. You go pale and you stiffen. Every time Toutosai put so much as a finger on you in public, I witnessed your struggle not to shrug him off. It must have been fun in the bedroom..."

Kagome's slender backbone quivered. Her fingernails flexed like claws longing to make contact with human flesh. She wanted to kill him. But she couldn't even trust herself to speak, and was all the more agitated by the simple fact that she had never felt such rage before and honestly didn't know how to cope with it.

"But then, it was always evident to me that Toutosai's biggest thrill was trotting you out in public at every possible opportunity. _"__Look__at__me,__I__have__a__blonde__twice__as__tall__as__me__and__a__third__of__my__age_,"' Inuyasha mused with earthy amusement. "I suspect he might not have demanded intimate entertainment that often. He wasn't a young man..."

"And you are...without doubt...the most offensive, objectionable man I have ever met!" Kagome launched with her back still rigidly turned to him.

"1 am a taste you will acquire. After all, you need someone like me." A pair of strong hands settled without warning on her slim shoulders and exerted sufficient pressure to swivel her back round to face him.

"I need someone like you like I need a hole in the head!" Kagome railed back at him rawly as she tore herself free of that controlling hold. "And keep your hands off me...I don't like being pawed!"

"Why are you so angry? I had to tell you about the loan," Inuyasha pointed out calmly. "I was aware that the Coulters' lawyer had already been in touch. Naturally, I wanted to set your mind at rest."

The reminder of the debt that had simply been transferred acted like a drenching flood of cold water on Kagome's overheated emotions. Her angry flush was replaced by waxen pallor. Her body turned cold and weak and shaky and she studied the worn carpet at his feet. "You've bought yourself a pup. I can't settle that loan...and right now I haven't even got enough to make a payment on it," she framed sickly.

"Why do you get yourself so worked up about nothing?" Inuyasha released an extravagant sigh. "Sit down before you fall down. Haven't I already given you my assurance that I have no intention of holding that former debt over your head in any way? But, in passing, may I ask what you needed that loan for?"

"I got into a real financial mess, that's all," she muttered evasively, protecting her father as she always did, conscious of the derisive distaste such weakness roused in other, stronger men. And, drained by her outbursts and ashamed of them, she found herself settling back down into the chair again.

For the very first time she was genuinely scared of Taisho Inuyasha. He owned a piece of her, just as Toutosai once had, but he would be expecting infinitely more than a charade in return. She wasn't taken in by his reassurances, or by that roughly gentle intonation she had never dreamt he might possess. In the space of ten minutes he had reduced her to a babbling, screeching wreck and, for now, he was merely content to have made his domineering presence felt.

"Money is not a subject I discuss with women," Inuyasha told her quietly. "It is most definitely not a subject I ever wish to discuss with you again."

Taisho Inuyasha, billionaire and benevolence personified? Kagome shuddered with disbelief. Did he ever read his. own publicity? She had sat in on business meetings chaired by him, truly unforgettable experiences. The King and his terrified minions, who behaved as if at any moment he might snap and shout, "Off with their heads!" Grown men perspired and stammered with nerves in his presence, cowered when he shot down their suggestions, went into cold panic if he frowned. He did not suffer fools gladly. He had a brilliant mind, but that superior intellect had made him inherently devious and manipulative. He controlled the people around him. In comparison, Shio Toutosai had been harmless. Kagome had coped with Toutosai. And Toutosai, give him his due, had never tried to pose as her only friend in a hostile world. But over her now loomed a six-footfour- inch giant threat without a conscience.

"I know where you're coming from," Kagome heard herself admit out loud as she lifted her beautiful head again.

Inuyasha gazed down at her with steady golden eyes. "Then why all the histrionics?" Kagome gulped, disconcerted to feel that awful surge of temper rise again. With that admission she had expected to make him wary, force him to ease back. About the last reaction she had expected was his cool acknowledgement that she was intelligent enough to recognise his tactics for what they were. The iron hand in the velvet glove.

"Have dinner with me tonight," Inuyasha suggested smoothly. "We can talk then. You need some time to think things over."

"I need no time whatsoever." Kagome stared back up into those astonishingly dark and impenetrable eyes and suffered the oddest light-headed sensation, as if the floor had shifted beneath her. Her lashes fluttered, a slight bemused frown line drawing her fine brows together as she shook her head slightly, long ebony hair thick as skein on skein of silk rippling round her shoulders. "I will not be your mistress."

"I haven't asked yet."

A cynical laugh was torn from Kagome as she rose restively to her feet again. "You don't need to be that specific. I certainly didn't imagine you were planning to offer me anything more respectable. And, no, I do not intend to discuss this any further," she asserted tightly, carefully focusing on a point to the left of him, die tip of her tongue stealing out to moisten her dry lower lip in a swift defensive motion. "So either you are a good loser or a bad loser, Mr Taisho...I imagine I'll find out which soon enough…"

"I do not lose," Inuyasha breathed in a roughened under tone. "I am also very persistent. If you make yourself a challenge, I will resent the waste of time demanded by pursuit but, like any red-blooded male, I will undoubtedly want you even more"

'

Without even knowing why, Kagome shivered. There was the most curious buzz in the atmosphere, sending tiny little warning pulses of alarm through her tautening length. Her unsettled and bemused eyes swerved involuntarily back to him and locked into the ferocious hold of his compelling scrutiny.

"I will also become angry with you," Inuyasha forecast, shifting soundlessly closer, his husky drawl thickening and lowering in pitch to a mesmeric level of intimacy. "You made Toutosai jump through no hoops...why should I? And I would treat you so much better than he did. I know what a woman likes. I know what makes a woman of your nature 1 feel secure and appreciated, what makes her happy, content, satisfied..."

Like a child drawn too close to a blazing fire in spite of j all warnings, Kagome was transfixed. She could feel her own heartbeat accelerating, the blood surging rich and vibrantly alive through her veins. A kind of craving, an almost terrifying upswell of excitement potently and powerfully new to her gripped her.

"In.. Inuyasha?" she whispered, feeling dizzy and disorientated.

He reached out and drew her to him without once breaking that spellbinding appraisal. "How easily you can say my name..."

And she said it again, like a supplicant eager to please.

Those stunning eyes of his blazed gold as a hot sun with satisfaction. She trembled, legs no longer dependable supports beneath her, and yet in all her life she had never been more shockingly aware of her own body. Her braless breasts were swelling beneath the denim shirt she wore, the tender nipples suddenly tightening to thrust with aching sensitivity against the rough grain of the fabric.

There was a sudden enormous jarring thud on the windowpane behind her. Startled, Kagome almost jumped a foot in the air, and even Inuyasha flinched.

"Relax...a football hit the window," he groaned,in apparent disbelief as he raised his dark, imperious head. "It is now being retrieved by two grubby little boys."

But Kagome wasn't listening. She had been plunged into sudden appalled confusion by the discovery that Taisho Inuyasha had both arms loosely linked round her and had come within treacherous inches of kissing her. Even worse, she realized, every fiber of her yearning body had been longing desperately for that kiss.

Jerking back abruptly from the proximity of his lean, muscular frame, Kagome pressed shaking hands against her hot, flushed cheeks. "Get out of here and don't ever come back!"

Inuyasha grated something guttural in Greek, stood his ground and dealt her a hard, challenging look. "What's the matter with you?"

And what remained of Kagome's self-respect drained away as she recognized his genuine bewilderment. Dear heaven, she had encouraged him. She had been straining up to him, mindlessly eager for his lovemaking, paralyzed to the spot with excitement and longing, and he knew it too. And did his body feel as hers did now? Deprived, aching... As she registered such unfamiliar, intimate thoughts, Kagome realized just how out of control she was.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," she gabbled in near panic as she rushed past him out into the hall to pull open the front door. "I want you to leave and I don't want you to come back. In fact I'll put the dog on you if you ever come here again!"

'

In a demonstration of disturbing volatility, Inuyasha vented a sudden appreciative laugh, the sound rich and deep and earthy. His quality of dark implacability vanished under the onslaught of that amusement. Kagome stared. The sheer charisma of that wolfish grin took her by surprise.

"The dog's more likely to lick me to death...and you?" An ebullient ebony brow elevated as he watched the hot colour climb in her perplexed face.

"Leave!" The word erupted from Kagome, so desperate was she to silence him.

"And you?" Inuyasha repeated with steady emphasis. "For some strange reason, what just happened between us, which on my level was nothing at all, unnerved you, scared you... embarrassed you..."

As he listed his impressions Kagome watched him with a sick, sinking sensation in her stomach, for never before had she been so easily read, and never before had a man made her feel like a specimen on a slide under a microscope.

"Now why should honest hunger provoke shame?" Inuyasha asked softly. "Why not pleasure?"

"Pleasure ?"

"I do not presume to know your every thought...as yet," Inuyasha qualified with precision.

His brilliant eyes intent, he strolled indolently back into the fresh air. "But surely when ambition and desire unite, you should be pleased?" He left her with that offensive suggestion, striding down the path and out to the pavement where a uniformed chauffeur waited beside a long, dark limousine. The two wide-eyed and decidedly grubby little boys, one of whom was clutching the football, were trying without success to talk to the po-faced chauffeur. She watched as Inuyasha paused to exchange a laughing word with them, bending to their level with disconcerting ease.

Disturbed by her own fascination, she slammed shut the door on her view. He would be back; she knew that. She couldn't explain how but she knew it as surely as she knew that dawn came around every morning. Feeling curiously like someone suffering from concussion, she wandered aimlessly back down into the kitchen and was surprised to find Sango sitting there, her kindly face anxious.

"Bounce started whining behind the studio door. He must've heard you shouting. I came back into the house but naturally I didn't intrude when I realized it was just an argument," Sango confided ruefully. "Unfortunately, before I retreated again, I heard rather more than I felt comfortable hearing. You're a wretched dog, Bounce...your grovelling greeting to Tashio Inuyasha affected my judgement!"

"So you realized who my visitor was…?"

"Not initially, but my goodness I should've done!" Sango exclaimed feelingly. "You've talked about Inuyasha so often…"

'

"Have I?" Kagome breathed with shaken unease, her cheeks burning.

Sango smiled. "All the time you were criticizing him and complaining about his behavior, I could sense how attracted you were to him..."

A hoarse laugh erupted from Kagome's dry throat. "I wish you'd warned me. It hit me smack in the face when I wasn't prepared for it. Stupid, wretched chemistry and I never even realized... I feel such an idiot now!" Eyes prickling with tears of reaction, she studied the table, struggling to reinstate her usual control. "And I've got the most banging headache starting up..."

"Of course you have," Sango murmured soothingly. "I've never heard you yelling at die top of your voice before."

"But then I have never hated anyone so much in my life as I hate Tashio Inuyasha,' Kagome confessed shakily. "I wanted to kill him, Sango...I really wanted to kill him! Now I'm in debt to him instead of Toutosai…"

"I did hear him say that you didn't have to worry about that."

Kagome's eyes flashed. "If it takes me until I'm ninety, I'll pay him back every penny!"

"He may have hurt your pride, Kagome...but he was most emphatic about not wanting repayment. He sounded sincere to me, and surely you have to give him some credit for his generosity whether you choose to regard it as a debt or otherwise?" Sango reasoned widi an air of frowning confusion. "The man has to be seriously interested in you to make such a big gesture on your behalf.."

"Sango…" Kagome broke in with a pained half-smile. "Do you think he might turn out to be the marrying kind?" the older woman continued with a sudden teasing smile.

That outrageous question made Kagome's jaw drop. " Sango, for heaven's sake...are you nuts?' she gasped. "What put that in your mind?"

"Your godmother's will.."

"Oh, that...forget that, Sango. That's yesterday's news. Believe me when I say that Inuyasha was not thinking along the lines of anything as...well, anything as lasting as marriage." Mindful of her audience, Kagome chose her words carefully and suppressed a sigh over the older woman's romantic imagination. "He is not romantically interested in me. He is not that sort of man. He's hard, he's icy cold.."

"He didn't sound cold on my doorstep...he sounded downright keen! You'd be surprised how much I can pick up from the nuances in a voice."

Sango was rather innocent in some ways. Kagome really didn't want to get down to basics and spell out just how a big, powerful tycoon like Tashio Inuyasha regarded her.

As a social inferior, a beautiful body, a target object to acquire for his sexual enjoyment, a live toy. Kagome shrank ,with revulsion and hated him all over again. " Sango ...he would be offended by the very suggestion that he would even consider a normal relationship with a woman who's been another man's mistress…"

"But you haven't been another man's mistress!"

Kagome ignored that point. After the horrendous publicity she had enjoyed, nobody would ever believe that now. "To be blunt, Sango...all Inuyasha wants is to get me into bed!"

"Oh..." Kagome breathed, and blushed until all her freckles merged. "Oh, dear, no...you don't want to get mixed up with a man like that."

Kagome lay in bed that night, listening to the distant sound of the traffic. She couldn't forgive herself for being at-, traded to a male like Taisho. It was impossible that she could like anything about him. _"__A__woman__of__you__nature,__"_ he had said. His one little slip. Wanton, available, already accustomed to trading her body in return for a luxurious lifestyle. That was what he had meant. Her heart ached and she felt as if she was bleeding inside. How had she ever sunk to the level where she had a reputation like that?

When Kagome had first been chosen as the image to launch a new range of hair care products, she had been a complete unknown and only eighteen years old. Although she had never had the slightest desire to be a model, she had let her father persuade her to give it a try and had swiftly found herself earning what had then seemed like enormous amounts of money. However, once the novelty had worn off, she had loathed the backbiting pressure and superficiality of the modeling circuit. She had saved like mad and had planned to find another way to make a living. But all the time, in the background of her life, her father had continued to gamble. Relying on her income as a safety net, he had, without her knowledge, begun playing for higher and higher stakes. To be fair, Shio's casino manager had cut off Onigumo's credit line the minute he'd suspected the older man was in over his head. Kagome had met Shio Toutosai for the first time the day she settled her father's outstanding tab at his casino.

"You won't change the man, Kagome," he had told her then. "If he was starving, he would risk his last fiver on a bet. He has to be the one who wants to change."

After that humiliating episode her father had made her so many promises. He had sworn blind that he would never gamble again but inevitably he had broken his word. And, barred from the reputable casinos, he had gone dangerously down-market to play high rolling poker games in smoky back rooms with the kind of tough men who would happily break his fingers if he didn't pay his dues on time. That was when Kagome's life had come completely unstuck...

Having got himself into serious debt, and learning to his dismay that his daughter had no savings left after his previous demands, Onigumo had been very badly beaten up. He had lost a kidney. In his hospital bed, he had sobbed with shame and terror in her arms. He had been warned that if he didn't come up with the money he owed, he would be crippled the next time.

Distraught, Kagome had gone to Shio Toutosai for advice. And Toutosai had offered her an arrangement. He would pay off her father's gambling debts and allow her to repay him at her leisure on condition that she moved in with him. He had been very honest about what he wanted. Not sex, he had insisted. No, what Toutosai had craved most had been the ego-boosting pleasure of being seen to possess a beautiful young woman, who would preside over his dinner table, act as his hostess, entertain his friends and always be vailable to accompany him wherever he went.

It hadn't seemed so much to ask. Nobody else had been prepared to loan her that amount f money. And she had been so agonizingly grateful that her father was safe from further arm. She hadn't seen the trap she was walking into. She hadn't even been aware that Toutosai was a married man until the headlines had hit the tabloids and taken her reputation away overnight. She had borne the blame for the breakup of his marriage.

"Kaede and I split up because she had an affair," Toutosai had admitted grudgingly when Kagome had roundly objected to the anomalous situation he had put her in. "But this way, with you by my side, I don't feel like a fool...all right?"

And she had felt sorry for him then, right through the protracted and very public battle he and his wife had had over alimony and property. Kaede and Toutosai had fought each other every inch of their slow path to the divorce court, yet a week before the hearing, when Toutosai had had a heart attack, the only woman he had been -able to think about when he was convinced that he was at his last gasp had, most tellingly, been his estranged wife. "Go away, leave me alone... I need Kaede here... I don't want her seeing you with me now!" he had cried in pathetic masculine panic.

And that had hurt. In a crazy way she had grown rather fond of Toutosai, even of his silly showing-off and quirky little vanities. Not a bad man, just a selfish one, like all the men she had ever known, and she hoped he was happy now that he was back with his Kaede. But he had used her not only to soothe his wounded vanity but also, and less forgivable, she recognized now, as a weapon with which to punish his unfaithful wife. And Kagome could not forget that, or forgive herself for the blind naivety that had allowed it to happen in the first place. Never, ever again, she swore, would she be used...

Early the next morning, Kagome helped Sango pack. Her friend was heading off to stay with friends in Devon. The fact that her house wouldn't be left empty during her absence was a source of great relief to Sango. The previous year her home had been burgled and her studio vandalized while she was away.

As soon as she had seen the older woman off, Kagome spent an hour slapping on make-up like war-paint and dressing up in style. Taisho Inuyasha needed a lesson and Kagome was determined to give it to him.

Mid-morning, she pawned the one piece of valuable jewellery she owned. She had been eleven when she'd found the Victorian bracelet buried in a box of cheap costume beads which had belonged to her mother. She had cried, guessing why the bracelet had been so well concealed. Even in the three short years of her marriage, her poor mother had doubtless learnt the hard way that when her husband was short of money he would sell anything he could get his hands on. Afterwards, Russ would be terribly sorry and ashamed, but by then it would be too late and the treasured possession would be gone. So Kagome had kept the bracelet hidden too.

And now it hurt so much to surrender that bracelet. It felt like a betrayal of the mother she could barely remember. But she desperately needed the cash and she had nothing else to offer. Inuyasha had to be shown that he hadn't bought her or any rights over her by settling Toutosai's loan. The sacrifice of her mother's bracelet, temporarily or otherwise, simply hardened Kagome's angry, bitter resolve.

Half an hour later, she strolled out of the lift on to the top floor of the skyscraper that housed the London headquarters of the vast Taisho organization. She spared the receptionist barely a glance. She knew how to get attention.

"I want to see Inuyasha," she announced.

Miss...Miss Higurashi?" The brunette was already on her feet, eyes opened wide in recognition: in a bold scarlet dress that caressed every curve, her spectacular hair rippling in a sheet of ebony to her waist, and heels that elevated her to well over six feet, Kagome was extremely noticeable.

"I know where his office is." Kagome breezed on down the corridor, the brunette darting after her with an incoherent gasp of dismay.

She flung wide his office door when she got there .Infuriatingly, it was empty. She headed for the boardroom, indifferent to the squawking receptionist, whose frantic pursuit had attracted the attention of another two secretarial staff.

_Bingo!_ Kagome strolled through the boardroom's double doors. An entire room full of men in business suits swiveled at her abrupt entry and then gaped. Kagome wasn't looking at them. Her entire attention was for Inuyasha, already rising from his chair at the head of the long polished table, his expression of outrage shimmering in an instant into shocking impassivity. But she took strength from the stunned quality that had briefly lit those fierce golden eyes of his.

"I want to see you now," Kagome told him, sapphire-blue eyes firing a challenge."You could wait in Mr Taisho's office, just through here, Miss Higurashi". The quiet female intervention came from the slim older woman who had already rushed to cast invitingly wide the door which connected with her employer's office.

"Sorry, I don't want to wait," Kagome delivered.

A blazing look of dark, simmering fury betrayed Inuyasha. It was the reaction of a male who had never before been subjected to a public scene. Kagome smiled sweetly. He couldn't touch her because she had nothing to lose. No money, no current employment, nothing but her pride and her wits. He should've thought of that angle. And, no matter what it took, she intended to make Inuyasha pay for the state he had put her in the day before.

In one wrathful stride, Inuyasha reached her side and closed a forceful hand round her narrow wrist. Kagome let out a squeal as if he had hurt her. Startled, he dropped her wrist again. In receipt of a derisive, unimpressed glance that would've made a lesser woman cringe, Kagome noted without surprise that Inuyasha was a quick study.

"Thank you," she said, and meant it, and she strolled through to his big, luxurious office like a little lamb because now she knew he was coming too.

"Unexpected visitors with unpredictable behavior are so enervating...don't you think?" Kagome trilled as she fell still by the side of his impressive desk.

Inuyasha swore in Greek, studying her with seething golden eyes full of intimidation. "You crazy…" His wide mouth hardened as he bit back the rest of that verbal assault with the greatest of visible difficulty. "What the hell are you playing at?" he growled like a grizzly bear instead.

"I'm not playing, I'm paying" With a flourish, Kagome opened her fingers above his desk and let drop the crushed banknotes in her hand. "Something on account towards the loan. I can't be bought like a tin of beans off a supermarket shelf!"

"How dare you interrupt a business meeting?" Inuyasha launched at her full throttle.

"How dare you make a scene like that in my boardroom?"

Kagome tensed. She had never heard a man that angry. She had never seen a male with so dark a complexion look that pale. Nor had she ever faced a pair of eyes that slashed like bloodthirsty razors into her.

"You asked for it," she informed him grittily. "You embarrassed me yesterday. You made me feel this big..." With her thumb and her forefinger she gave him a literal demonstration. "You made me feel powerless and this is pay-back time. You picked on the wrong woman!"

"Is this really the Ice Queen I'm dealing with?" Inuyasha responded very, very drily.

"You'd burn the ice off the North Pole!" Kagome sizzled back at him, wondering why he had now gone so still, why his naturally vibrant skin tone was recovering color, indeed why he didn't appear to be in a rage any more.

"Do you suffer from a split personality?"

"Did you really think you knew me just because you were in the same room with me a handful of times?" Kagome flung her head back and was dumbstruck by the manner in which his narrowed gaze instantly clung to her cascading mane of hair, and then roved on down the rest of her with unconcealed appreciation. It struck her that Inuyassha was so convinced that he was an innately superior being and so' oversexed that he couldn't take a woman seriously for five minutes.

Brilliant golden eyes swooped up to meet hers again, "No way did you ever behave like this around Toutosai…"

"My relationship with him is none of your business," Kagome asserted with spirit. "But,

believe me, nobody has ever insulted me as much as you did yesterday."

"I find that very hard to believe."

Involuntarily, Kagome flinched.

Immensely tall and powerful in his superbly tailored 'silver-grey suit, Inuyasha watched her, not an informative glimmer of any emotion showing now on that lean, strong, hardboned face. "Since when has it been an insult for a man to admit that he wants a woman?" he demanded with decision.

"You frightened the life out of me telling me you'd paid off that loan...you put me under pressure, then you tried to move in for the kill like the cold, calculating womanizer you are!" Kagome bit out not quite levelly, and, spinning on her heel, she started towards the door.

"All exits are locked. You're trapped for the moment," Inuyasha delivered softly.

Kagome didn't believe him until she had tried and failed to open the door. Then she hissed furiously, "Open this door"

"Why should I?" Inuyasha enquired, choosing that exact same moment to lounge indolently back against the edge of his desk, so cool, calm and confident that Kagome wanted to rip him to pieces. "Presumably you came here to entertain me...and, although I have no tolerance for tantrums, you do look magnificent in that dress, and naturally I would like to know why I'm receiving this melodramatic response to my proposition."

In one flying motion, Kagome spun back. "So you admit that that's what it was?"

"1 want you. It's only a matter of time until I get what I want," Inuyasha imparted very quietly in the deadly stillness.

Kagome shivered. "When the soft soap doesn't work, weigh in with the threats…"

"That wasn't a threat. I don't threaten women," Inuyasha growled with a feral flash of white teeth. "No woman has ever come to my bed under threat!"

Nobody could feign that much outrage. He was an Alpha male and not one modestly given to underestimating his own attractions. But then, he had it all, she conceded bitterly. Incredible looks and sex appeal, more money than he could spend in a lifetime and a level of intelligence that scorched and challenged.

Kagome shot him a look of violent loathing. "You think you're so special, don't you? You thought I'd be flattered, ready to snatch at whatever you felt like offering...but you're no different from any of the other men who have lusted after me," she countered with harsh clarity. "And I've had plenty of practice dealing with your sort. I've looked like this since I was fourteen…"

"I'm grateful you grew up before our paths crossed," Inuyasha breathed with deflating amusement.

At that outrageous comment, something inside Kagome just cracked wide open, and she rounded on him like a tigress. "I shouldn't have had to cope with harassment at that age. Do you think I don't know that I'm no more real to a guy like you than a blow-up sex doll?" she condemned with raw, stinging contempt. "Well, I've got news for you, Mr Taisho...I am not available to be any man's live toy. You want a toy, you go to a store and buy yourself a railway set!"

"I thought you'd respect the upfront approach," Inuyasha confided thoughtfully. "But then I could never have guessed that behind the front you put on in public you suffer from such low self-esteem..."

Utterly thrown by that response, and with a horrendous suspicion that this confrontation was going badly wrong shrilling through her, Kagome suddenly felt foolish.

"Don't be ridiculous... of course I don't," she argued with ragged stress. "But, whatever mistakes I've made. I have no intention of repeating them. Now, I've told you how I feel, so open that blasted door and let me out of here!"

Inuyasha surveyed her with burning intensity, dense lashes low on penetrating black eyes. "If only it were that easy..."

But this time when Kagome's perspiring fingers closed around the handle the door sprang open, and she didn't stalky like a prowling queen of the jungle on her exit, she simply fled, every nerve in her too hot body jangling with aftershock.

N/A: Well , here is another chapter. I hope you all enjoy it and post a review.

I decided that I will update weekly, so I think I'll see you next week!


	3. Married to a Mistress 3

CHAPTER THREE

What had possessed her, what on earth had possessed her? Kagome asked herself feverishly over and over again as she walked. The rain came heavily—long, lazy June days of sunshine finally giving way to an unseasonably torrent which drenched her to the skin within minutes. Since she was too warm, and her temples still pounded with frantic tension, she welcomed that cooling rain.

Something had gone wildly off the rails in that office. Inuyasha had prevented her quick exit. He had withstood everything she threw at him with provocative poise. In fact, just like yesterday, the more out of control she had got, the calmer and more focused he had become. And he zipped from black fury to outrageous cool at spectacular and quite unnerving speed.

Melodramatic, yes, Kagome acknowledged. She had been. Inexplicably, she had gone off the deep end and hurled recriminations that she had never intended to voice. And, like the shrewd operator he was, Taisho Inuyasha had trained those terrifyingly astute eyes on her while she recklessly exposed private, personal feelings of bitter pain and insecurity.

It was stress which had done this to her. Toutosai's heart attack, the sudden resulting upheaval in her own life, the dreadful publicity, her godmother's death. The pressure had got to her and blown her wide open in front of a male who zeroed in on any weakness like a predator. Low self-esteem... she did not suffer from low self-esteem!

A limousine drew up several yards ahead of her in the quiet side-street she was traversing. Alighting in one fluid movement, Inuyasha ran exasperated eyes over her sodden appearance and grated, "Get in out of the rain, you foolish woman...don't you even know to take shelter when it's wet?"

Swallowing hard on that in-your-face onslaught, Kagome pushed shaking fingers through the wet strands of hair clinging to her brow and answered him with a blistering look of charged defiance. "Go drop yourself down a drain!"

"Will you scream assault if I just throw you in the car?" Inuyasha demanded with raw impatience.

A kind of madness powered Kagome then, adrenaline racing through her. She squared up to him, scarlet dress plastered to her fantastic body, the stretchy hemline riding up on her long, fabulous legs. She dared him with her furious eyes and her attitude and watched his powerful hands clench into fists of self-restraint—because of course he was far too clever to make a risky move like that.

"Why are you following me?" she breathed.

"I'm not into railway sets...too slow, too quiet," Inuyasha confessed.

"I'm not into egocentric dominating men who think they know everything better than me!" Kagome slung back at him, watching his luxuriant ebony hair begin to curl in the steady rain, glistening crystalline drops running down his hard cheekbones. And she thought crazily, "_He's__getting__wet__for__me_", and she liked that idea.

"If this is my cue to say I might change... sorry, no can do. I am what I am," Inuyasha spelt out.

Stupid not to take a lift when she could have one, Kagome decided on the spur of the moment, particularly when she was beginning to feel cold and uncomfortable in her wet clothing. Sidestepping him, enjoying the awareness that she was rather surprising him, she climbed into the limousine.

The big car purred away from the kerb.

"I decided to make you angry because I want you to leave me alone," Kagome told him truthfully.

"Then why didn't you stay away from me? Why did you get into this car?" Inuyasha countered with lethal precision.

In answer, Kagome made an instinctive and instantaneous shift across the seat towards the passenger door. But, before she could try to jump back out of the car, a powerful hand whipped out to close over hers and hold her fast. The limousine quickened speed. Golden eyes clashed with hers. "Are you suicidal?" Inuyasha bit out crushingly.

Kagome shakily pulled free of his grasp.

The heavy silence clawed at her nerves. Such a simple question, such a lethally simple, clever question, yet it had flummoxed her. If she had truly wanted to avoid him, why had she let something as trivial as wet clothes push her back into his company?

Inuyasha extended a lean brown hand again, with the aspect of an adult taking reluctant pity on a sulky child. "Come here," he urged.

Without looking at him again, Kagome curled into the far corner of the back seat instead.

His larger-than-life image was already engraved inside her head. She didn't know what was happening to her, why she was reacting so violently to him. Her own increasing turmoil and the suspicion that she was adrift in dangerously unfamiliar territory frankly frightened her. Taisho Inuysha was bad news in every way for a woman like her.

Avoiding him like the plague was the only common sense response. And she should've been freezing him out, not screaming at him.

With a languorous sigh, Inuyasha shrugged fluidly out of his suit jacket. Without warning he caught her hand and pulled her to him. Taken by surprise, Kagome went crazy, struggling wildly to untangle herself from those powerful fingers. "Let go! What are you trying to…?"

"Stop it!" Inuyasha thundered down at her, and he released her again in an exaggerated movement, spreading both arms wide as if to demonstrate that he carried no offensive weapon. "I don't like hysterical women."

"I'm not...I'm not like that." Kagome quivered in shock and stark embarrassment as he draped his grey jacket round her slim, taut shoulders. The silk lining was still warm from his body heat. The faint scent of him clung to the garment and her nostrils flared. Clean, husky male, laced with the merest tang of some citrus-based lotion. She lowered her damp head and breathed that aroma in deep. The very physicality of that spontaneous act shook her.

"You're as high-strung as some of my racehorses," Inuyasha contradicted. "Every time I

come close you leap about a foot in the air…"

"I didn't yesterday," she muttered with sudden lancing bitterness.

"You didn't get the chance...I crept up on you." With a tormenting sexy sound of indolent amusement, Inuyasha reached out his hands and closed them over the sleeves of

the jacket she now wore, tugging on them like fabric chains of captivity to bring her to

him.

"No!" Kagome gasped, wide-eyed, her hands flying up, only to find that the only place she could plant her palms was against his broad, muscular chest.

"If you like, you can bail out after the first kiss…no questions asked, no strings

attached," Inuyasha promised thickly.

Even touching him through his shirt felt so incredibly intimate that guilty quivers ran through her tautening length. He was so hot. Her fingers spread and then shifted over the tactile silk barrier, learning of the rough whorls of hair below the fabric and enthralled. She was used to being around male models with shiny shaven chests. She shivered deliciously, appallingly tempted to rip open the shirt and explore.

Heavily lidded golden eyes lambent with sensual indulgence intercepted hers. "You look like a guilty child with her hand caught in the biscuit tin," he confided with a lazy smile. At the power of that smile, the breath tripped in Kagome's throat, her pupils dilating. His proximity mesmerized her. She could see tiny gold lights in his eyes, appreciate the incredible silky length and luxuriance of those black lashes and the faint blue shadow on his strong jaw line. The potency of her own fascination filled her with alarm. "You're all wrong for me," she said in breathless panic, like a woman trying to run through a swamp and inexplicably finding herself standing still and sinking fast.

"Prove it," Inuyasha invited in that velvet-soft drawl that fingered down her spine like a caress. A confident hand pushed into her drying hair and curved to the nape of her neck.

"Prove that anything that feels this good could possibly be wrong for either of us." He was so stunningly gorgeous, she couldn't think straight. Her heartbeat seemed to be racing in her tight throat. The insidious rise of her own excitement was like a drowning, overwhelming wave that drove all before it. He dropped his eyes to the pouting distended buds clearly delineated by the clinging bodice of her dress and her face burned red.

Slowly Inuyasha tilted her back, his arms banding round her spine to support her, and, bending his dark, arrogant head, he pressed the mouth she craved on hers to the thrusting sensitivity of an aching nipple instead. Her whole body jumped, throat arching, head falling back, teeth clenching on an incoherent whimper of shock.

Inuyasha lifted her up again, black eyes blazing with primal male satisfaction. "It hurts to want this much. I don't think you were familiar with the feeling...but now you are."

Trembling, Kagine stared at him, sapphire eyes dark with shaken arousal. Cold fear snaked through her. He was playing with her just as he might have played with a toy.

Using his carnal expertise he was taunting her, winding her up, demonstrating his sexual mastery.

"Don't touch me!" Her hand whipped up and caught him across one hard cheekbone, and then she froze in dismay at what she had done.

With striking speed Inuyasha closed his fingers round that offending hand, and slowly he smiled again. "Frustration should make you angry."

Beneath her strained and bemused gaze, he bent his glossy dark head and pressed his lips hotly to the centre of her stinging palm. It was electrifying. It was as if every tiny bit of her body was suddenly programmed to overreact. And then, while she was still struggling to comprehend the incredible strength of his power over her, he caught her to him with indolent assurance and simply, finally, kissed her.

Only there was nothing simple about that long-awaited kiss. It blew Kagome away with excitement. It was like no kiss she had ever received. That hard, sensual mouth connected with hers and instantly she needed to be closer to him than his own skin.

Pulses pounding at an insane rate, she clutched at him with frantic hands, reacting to the violent need climbing inside her, craving more with every passing second.

And then it was over. Inuyasha studied her with burnished eyes of appreciation, all virile male strength and supremacy as he absorbed the passion-glazed blankness of her hectically flushed and beautiful face.

"Come on," he urged her thickly.

She hadn't even realized the limousine had stopped. Now he was closing his jacket round her again with immense care, practically lifting her back out into the rain and the sharp fresh air which she drank in great thirsty gulps. She felt wildly disorientated. For timeless minutes the world beyond the limousine just hadn't existed for her. In confusion, she curved herself into the support of the powerful arm welded to her narrow back and bowed her head.

Without warning, Inuyasha tensed and vented a crushing oath, suddenly thrusting her behind him. Kagome looked up just in time to see a photographer running away from them.

Simultaneously two powerfully built men sprinted from the car behind the limo and grabbed him before he could make it across to the other side of the street.

Inuyasha untensed again, straightening big shoulders. "My security men will expose his

film. That photo of us will never see the light of day."

In a daze, Kagome watched that promise carried out. As a demonstration of ruthlessness it took her breath away. She had often wished that she could avoid the intrusive cameras of the paparazzi, but she had never seen in action the kind of brute power which Inuyasha exercised to protect his privacy

.

And it was his privacy that he had been concerned about, she sensed. Certainly not hers. Why was it that she suspected that Inuyasha would go to great lengths to avoid being captured in newsprint by her side? Why was it that she now had the strongest feeling that Inuyasha was determined not to be seen in public with her?

Shivering with reaction at that lowering suspicion, she emerged from her tangled thoughts to find herself standing in a stark stainless steel lift. "Where are we?" she muttered then, with a frown of bewilderment.

The doors sped soundlessly back on a vast expanse of marble flooring.

"My apartment...where else?"

Kagome flinched in dismay, her brain cranking back into sudden activity. If that paparazzi had escaped, he would've had a highly embarrassing and profitable picture of her entering Tashio Inuyasha's apartment wrapped intimately in his jacket. No prizes for guessing what people would've assumed. She just could not believe how stupid she had been.

"I thought you were taking me back to Sango's," she admitted rather unsteadily.

Inuyasha angled up a mocking brow. "I never said I was...and, after our encounter in the car, I confess that I prefer to make love in my own bed."

Kagome could feel her teeth starting to chatter, her legs shaking. Like a whore, that was how she would've looked in that photo, and that was exactly how he was treating her.

"Kagome..." Inuyasha purred, reading her retreat and switching channel to high-powered sensual persuasion as he strolled with animal grace towards her, strong, hard-boned face amused. "You think I'm likely to respect you more if you suggest that we should wait another week, and other month? I have no time for outdated attitudes like that…"

"Obviously not." Agreement fell like dropped stones from Kagome's tremulously compressed lips.

"And I cannot credit that you should feel any differently. We will still be together six months from now," Inuyasha , forecast reflectively. "Possibly even longer. I burn for you in a way I haven't burned for a woman in a very long time."

"Try a cold shower." Ice-cool as her own shrinking fleshy Kagome stood there, chin tilting as high as she could hold it even though she felt as if she was falling apart behind her facade. She shrugged back her shoulders so that his jacket slid off and fell in a rejected heap on the floor. "I'm not some bimbo you can bed before you even date me…"

"The original idea was only to offer you lunch..." A dark rise of blood accentuated the tautening slant of his bold hard cheekbones as he made that admission.

"But why waste time feeding me?" Kagome completed for him, her distaste unconcealed. "In my time I have met some fast movers, but you have to qualify as supersonic. A kiss in the limo and that was consent to the whole menu?"

Inuyasha flung his arrogant dark head back, golden eyes thudding like steel arrows into a target. "The desire between us was honest and mutual and very strong. Do you expect me to apologise for a hunger you answered with a passion as powerful as my own?"

Kagome flinched. "No...I don't think you make a habit of apologising."

"I'm very straight...what you see is what you get. You put out conflicting signals and then back off. You have the problem," Inuyasha informed her in cool condemnation. "Don't put it on me. When I became an adult, I put childish games behind me."

Although every strained muscle in her taut length ached, Kagome remained as outwardly poised as a queen surveying a less than satisfactory subject. But violent loathing powered her now. It took its strength from her shame that she had allowed him to touch her at all.

"1 won't say it's been nice getting to know you over the past twenty-four hours, Inuyasha...it's been lousy," Kagome stated, and turned in the direction of the lift.

"Goddamn you...don't you dare walk away from me!" Inuyasha slashed across the distance that separated them. "Who are you, Kagome Higurashi, to speak to me like that?"

"No more...I don't want to hear it," Kagome muttered shakily.

"This time you will listen to me," Inuyasha raked at her in wrathful forewarning. In one powerful stride he imposed his intimidating size between her and the lift. His lean, strong face hard as steel, bold golden eyes hurled a ferocious challenge. "Do you think I don't know you moved in with Toutosai between one day and the next? You hardly knew him. You came out of nowhere into his life. Do you think I didn't notice that you weren't remotely attracted to him?" Quite unprepared for that angle of attack, Kagome stammered.

"I... I.."

"In fact, Toutosai bored you to death and you couldn't hide it. You could hardly bear him to touch you but you stuck it for three years all the same. Does that strike you as the behavior of a sensitive woman with principles? You sold yourself for a wardrobe of designer clothes…"

"No, I didn't!" Kagome gasped strikingly.

"At no stage did you wake up and say to yourself, _"I__could__do__better__than__this.__I'm__worth_

_more__than__this.__This__isn't__the__way__I__should__be__living!_"' Inuyasha roared at her in a rage of shockingly raw derision. "So don't tell me I got the wrong impression. I trust the evidence of my own eyes and senses. You felt nothing for him. But you put yourself on the market and he was still able to buy!"

Nausea stirring in her stomach, Kagome was retreating deeper into the penthouse apartment, her hands coming up in a fluttering movement in front of her as if she could somehow ward him off. "No...no," she mumbled sickly.

"And I was the bloody fool who, even knowing all that, still wanted you!" Inuyasha slung, spreading his arms in an extravagant gesture of outrage at her, at himself. "I didn't want to buy you...or maybe I wanted the cozy pretence that it didn't have to be like that between us...that because you lusted after me too I could gloss over the knowledge that my immense wealth might have anything to do with your presence in my life!"

Kagome was like a statue, terrified to risk a step in case she cracked and broke into shattered pieces. He had forced her into cruel confrontation with the image he had of her. Like an explosion of glass, countless shards pierced her cringing flesh as every painful word drew blood.

"I'll never forgive you for this," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "But Toutosai was never my lover. We had an agreement. It was a charade we played.."

Inuyasha spat something guttural in Greek. "Don't talk to me like I'm stupid!" Kagome looked through him then, and despised herself for even attempting self-defense. It suggested a weakness inside her, a need for this-arrogant Greek's good opinion that her savaged pride could not allow. "You stay away from me from now on…"

"You made your choices in life long before you met me. What is it that you want now?" Inuyasha demanded contemptuously.

A semi-hysterical laugh erupted from Kagome and she choked it off, twisting her head away defensively before he could see the burning tears in her eyes. "Just the usual things." Then she whipped her ebony head back, shimmering eyes as unwittingly bright as stars.

"And some day, when all this is behind me, I'll have them. I wouldn't have you as a gift, Inuyasha. I wouldn't make love with you unless you tied me to the bed and held me down and forced me...is that clear enough? What you want you will never have!"

Inuyasha stared at her as if he couldn't take his eyes off her and hated her for it. Kagome stared back with a stab of malicious satisfaction new to her experience. "Bad news, eh? I'll be the one who got away," she breathed tautly, frighteningly aware of the thunderous charge of violence in the atmosphere but unable to silence her own tongue and her helpless need to taunt him. "But then why should that bother you? It's not like you have a shred of real emotion in you…"

"What do you want from me?" Inuyasha ripped back at her with suppressed savagery. "I

will not and could not love a woman like you!'"

"Oh, that honesty...hits me right where it hurts," Kagome trilled, a knife-like pain scything through her. She was shaking like a leaf without even being aware of it. "But for all that you still want me, don't you? Do you know something, Inuyasha? I like knowing that."

A muscle jerked at the corner of his wide, sensual mouth, his strong jaw line clenching. Those stunning golden eyes burned with rage and seething pride.

"Thanks, you've just done wonders for my low self-esteem," Kagome informed him with a jagged catch in her voice.

"What a bitch you can be...I never saw that in you before.' His accent was so thick she could have sliced it up, but that contemptuous intonation would still have flamed over her like acid, hurting wherever it touched. "So, quote me a price for one night in your bed. What do you think you would be worth?"

The derisive suggestion coiled like a whip around her and scarred her worse than a beating. Her backbone went rigid. Hatred fired her embittered gaze. "You couldn't even make the bidding," Kagome asserted, looking him up and down as if he had crawled out from under a stone. "I'd want a whole lot .more than a wardrobe of designer clothes. You see, I learn from my mistakes, Inuyasha. The next man I live with will be my husband..."

Shock turned Inuyasha satisfying pale. "If you think for one insane second that I…"

"Of course you wouldn't," Kagome slotted in, each word clipped and tight with self-control. "But you must see now why I'm not available for lunch, in bed or out of it. A woman can't be too careful. Being associated with a randy Greek billionaire could be very harmful to my new image."

"I will work this entire dialogue out of your wretched hide every day you are with me!" Inuyasha snarled at her with primal force, all cool abandoned.

"You are just so slow on the uptake. I am not ever going to be with you, Inuyasha," Kagome pointed out, and with that last word she strolled past him, holding herself taut and proud to the last, and walked into the lift.

Outside in the street again, she discovered that she was trembling so violently it was an effort to put one leg in front of the other. For once disregarding her straitened circumstances, she chose to hail a cab. Her mind was working like a runaway express train, disconnected images bombarding her...

How could two people who scarcely knew each other spend so long tearing each other apart? How could she have been that bitchy? How could she have actually enjoyed striking back at him and watching him react with impotent black fury? And yet now she felt sick at the memory, and astonishingly empty, like someone who had learned to thrive on electric tension and pain...and who now could not see a future worth living without them.

Taisho Inuyasha had devastated her but he wouldn't bother her again now, she told herself in an effort at consolation. Even the toughest male wouldn't put himself in line for more of the same. And Inuyasha least of all. He had expected her to fall into his bed with the eagerness of an avaricious bimbo, scarcely able to believe her good fortune. Instead she had hit that boundless ego of his, watched him shudder in sheer shock from the experience...and yet inside herself she felt the most awful bewildering sense of loss.

Reluctant to dwell on reactions that struck her as peculiar, Kagome chose instead to look back on their brief acquaintance with self-loathing. She squirmed over her own foolishness. Like an adolescent fighting a first powerful crush, she had overreacted every step of the way.

She had fancied him like mad but, blind and naive as a headstrong teenager, she hadn't even admitted that to herself until it was too late to save face. _"__I__have__not__been__unaware__of__your__interest__in__me.__"_ She shuddered with shame. Had she surrendered to that physical attraction, it would've been a one-way ticket to disaster. She knew she couldn't afford to make any more wrong choices. She hadn't needed him to tell her that. Dear heaven, as if becoming his mistress would've been any kind of improvement on the humiliating charade Toutosai had forced her to live for so long!

Inuyasha hadn't believed her about Toutosai, of course he hadn't—hadn't even paused to catch his breath and listen. And in pushing the issue she would've made an ass of herself, for nothing short of medical proof of her virginity, if there was such a thing, would've convinced him otherwise. In any case the level of her experience wouldn't count with a male like Inuyasha. He viewed her the same way people viewed a takeaway snack. As something quick and cheap to devour, not savor. Her stomach lurched sickly.

Even had she been tempted, which she hadn't been, had he thought for one moment that she would've believed she was likely to hold his interest as long as six months? "_A__man__will__tell__a__girl__who__looks__like__you__anything__to__get__her__into__the__bedroom__"__'_ her father had once warned her grimly. "_The__one__who__is__prepared__to__wait,__the__one__who__is__more_

_interested in how you feel, is the one who cares!_

'

That blunt advice had embarrassed her at a time when she was already struggling to cope with the downside of the spectacular looks she had been born with. Girlfriends threatened by the mate attention she attracted had dumped her. Grown men had leered at her and tried to touch her and date her. Even teenage boys who, alone with her, had been totally intimidated by her, had told crude lies about her sexual availability behind her back.

Eight years on, Kagome was still waiting without much hope to meet a man who wasn't determined to put the cart before the proverbial horse.

An hour after she got back to Sango's house, the phone rang. It was Hyata Midoriko, who ran the Star modeling agency which had first signed Kagome up at eighteen.

"I've got no good news for you, Kagome," she shared in her usual brisk manner. "The PR people over at LFT Hair care have decided against using you for another series of ads."

"We were expecting that," Kagome reminded the older woman with a rueful sigh of acceptance.

"I'm afraid there's nothing else in the pipeline for you. Hardly surprising, really," Midoriko told her. "You're too strongly associated with one brand name. I did warn you about that risk and, to be blunt, your recent coverage in the tabloids has done you no favors."

It had been a month since Kagome had moved out of LToutosai's townhouse. She hadn't worked since then and now it looked as if she was going to have to find some other eans of keeping herself. Her bank account was almost empty. She couldn't afford to sit waiting for work that might never come, nor could she blame Midoriko for her lack of sympathy. Time and time again the older woman had urged Kagome to branch out into fashion modeling, but Toutosai's frantic social life and the demands he had made on her time had made that impossible.

Hours later, Kagome hunched over both bars of the electric fire in Sango's lounge as she tried to keep warm while she brooded. Inuyasha was gone. That was good, she told herself, that was one major problem solved. She scratched an itchy place on her arm and then gazed down in surprise at the little rash of spots there.

What had she eaten that had disagreed with her? she wondered, but she couldn't recall eating anything more than half a sandwich since breakfast time. She just couldn't work up an appetite. She fell asleep on the settee and at some timeless stage of the night wakened to feel her way down to the guest-room and undress on the spot before sinking wearily into bed.

When she woke up late the next morning, she wasn't feeling too good. As she cleaned her teeth she caught a glimpse of her face in the tiny mirror Sango had on the wall for visitors and she froze. There was another little rash of spots on her forehead. It looked remarkably like... chickenpox. And she itched, didn't she? But only children got that, didn't they? And then she remembered one of Sango's neighbors calling in a couple of weeks back with a child in tow who had borne similar spots.

"She's not infectious any more," the woman had said carelessly.

Lower lip wobbling, Kagome surveyed the possible proof of that misapprehension. A dry cough racked her chest, leaving her gasping for breath. Whatever she had, she was feeling foul. Getting herself a glass of water, she went back to bed. The phone went. She had to get out of bed again to answer it.

"What?" she demanded hoarsely after another bout of, coughing in the cold hall.

"Angelos here, what's wrong with you?"

"I have...I have a cold," she lied. "What do you want?"

"I want to see you..."

"No way!" Kagome plonked down the phone at speed.

The phone rang again. She disconnected it from its wall point. A couple of hours later the doorbell went. Kagome ignored it. Getting out of bed yet again felt like too much trouble.

She dozed for the rest of the day, finally waking up shivering with cold and conscious of an odd noise in the dim room. Slowly it dawned on her that the rasping wheeze was the sound of her own lungs straining to function. Her brain felt befogged, but she thought that possibly she might need a doctor. So she lay thinking about that while the doorbell rang and rang and finally fell silent.

Fear got a healthy grip on her when she stumbled dizzily out of bed and her legs just folded beneath her. She hit the polished wooden floor with a crash. Tears welled up in her sore eyes. The room was too dark for her to get her bearings. She started to crawl, trying to recall where the phone was. She heard a distant smash. It sounded like glass breaking, and then voices. Had she left the television on? Trying to summon up more strength, she rested her perspiring brow down on the boards beneath her.

And then the floor lit up...or so it seemed.


	4. Married to a Mistress 4

CHAPTER FOUR

A disturbingly familiar male voice bit out something raw in a foreign language and a pair of male feet appeared in Kagome's limited view. Strong hands turned her over and began to lift her.

"You're all... spotty..." Inuyasha glowered down at her with unblinking golden eyes, full of disbelief.

"Go away..." she mumbled.

"It just looks a little...strange," Inuyasha commented tautly, and after a lengthy pause, while Kagome squeezed shut her eyes against the painful intrusion of that overhead light and him, he added almost accusingly, "I thought only children got chickenpox."

"Leave me alone..." Kagome succumbed weakly to another coughing fit. Instead, he lifted her back onto the bed and rolled the bulky duvet unceremoniously round her prone body.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, struggling to concentrate, finding it impossible.

"I was on my way down to my country house for the weekend. Now it looks like I'll be staying in town and you'll be coming home with me," Inuyasha delivered, with no visible enthusiasm on his strong, hard face as he bent down to sweep her up into his powerful arms.

Kagome couldn't think straight, but the concept of having nothing whatsoever to do with Inuyasha was now so deeply engrained, his appearance had set all her alarm bells shrieking. "No...I have to stay here to look after the house…"

"I wish you could...but you can't"

"I promised Sango...she's away and she might be burgled again...put me down."

"I can't leave you alone here like this." Inuyasha stared down at her moodily, as if he was wishing she would make his day with a sudden miraculous recovery but secretly knew he didn't have much hope.

Kagome struggled to conceal her spotty face against his shoulder, mortified and weak, and too ill to fight but not too ill to hate. "I don't want to go anywhere with you." Gulping, she sniffed.

"I don't see any caring queue outside that door ready to take my place...and what have you got to snivel about?"

Inuyasha demanded with stark impatience as he strode down the hall. Then he stopped dead, meshing long fingers into her hair to tug her face round and gaze accusingly down into her bemused eyes. "I smashed my way in only because I was aware that you were ill. Decency demanded that I check that you were all right."

"I do not snivel," Kagome told him chokily.

"But the only reason I came here tonight was to return your "something on account" and to assure you that would be a cold day in hell before I ever darkened your door again…"

"So what's keeping you?"

But Inuyasha was still talking like a male with an ever-mounting sense of injustice. "And there you are, lying on the floor in a pathetic shivering heap with more spots than a Dalmatian! What's fair about that? But I'm not sniveling, am I?"

Kagome opened one eye and saw one of his security men watching in apparent fascination.

"I do not snivel..." she protested afresh

Inuyasha strode out into the night air. He ducked down into the waiting limousine and propped Kagome up in the farthest corner of the seat like a giant papoose that had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Only then did Kagome register that the limousine was already occupied by a gorgeous redhead, wearing diamonds and a spectacular green satin evening dress which would've been at home on the set of a movie about the Deep South of nineteenth-century America.

The other woman gazed back at Kagome, equally nonplussed.

"Have you had chickenpox, Natalie?" Inuyasha enquired almost chattily.

Natalie Cibaud. She was an actress, a well-known French actress, who had recently won rave reviews for her role in a Hollywood movie. It had not taken Inuyasha long to find other more entertaining company, Kagome reflected dully while a heated conversation in fast and furious French took place. Kagome didn't speak French, but the other woman sounded choked with temper while Inuyasha merely got colder and colder. Kagome curled up in an awkward heap, conscious she was the subject under dispute and wishing in despair that she could perform a vanishing act.

"Take me home!" she cried once, without lifting her sore head.

"Stay out of this...what's it got to do with you?"Inuyasha shot back at her with positive savagery. "No woman owns me... no woman ever has and no woman ever will!"

But Inuyasha was fighting a losing battle. Natalie appeared to have other ideas. Denied an appropriately humble response, her voice developed a sulky, shrill edge. Inuyasha became freezingly unresponsive. Strained silence finally fell. A little while later, the limousine came to a halt. The passenger door opened. Natalie swept out with her rustling skirts, saying something acid in her own language. The door slammed again.

"I suppose you thoroughly enjoyed all that," Inuyasha breathed in a tone of icy restraint as the limousine moved off again.

Opening her aching eyes a crack, Kagome skimmed a dulled glance at the space Natalie had occupied and recently vacated. She closed her eyes again. "I don't understand

French..."

Inuyasha grated something raw half under his breath and got on the phone. He had been ditched twice in as many days. And, wretched as she was, Kagome was tickled pink by that idea. Inuyasha, who got chased up hill and down dale by ninety-nine out of a hundred foolish women, had in the space of forty-eight hours met two members of the outstanding and more intelligent one percent minority. And it was good for him—really, really good for him, she decided. Then she dozed, only to groggily resurface every time she coughed. Within a very short time after that, however, she didn't know where she was any more and felt too ill to care.

"Feeling a bit better, Miss Higurashi?"

Kagome peered up at the thin female face above hers. The face was familiar, and yet unfamiliar too. The woman wore a neat white overall and she was taking Kagome's pulse.

Seemingly she was a nurse.

"What happened to me?" Kagome mumbled, only vaguely recalling snatches of endless tossing and turning, the pain in her chest, the difficulty in breathing.

"You developed pneumonia. It's a rare but potentially serious complication," the blonde

nurse explained. "You've been out of it for almost five days…"

"Five...days?" Kagome's shaken scrutiny wandered over the incredibly spacious bedroom, with its stark contemporary furniture and coldly elegant decor. She was in Inuyasha's apartment. She knew it in her bones. Nowhere was there a single piece of clutter or feminine warmth and homeliness. His idea of housing heaven, she reflected absently, would probably be the wide open spaces of an under-furnished aircraft hangar.

"You're very lucky Mr Taisho found you in time" her companion continued earnestly, dragging Kagome from her abstracted thoughts. "By recognizing the seriousness of your condition and ensuring that you got immediate medical attention, Mr Taisho probably saved your life…"

"No...I don't want to owe him anything...never mind my life!" Kagome gasped in unconcealed horror.

The slim blonde studied her in disbelief. "You've been treated by one of the top consultants in the UK...Mr Taisho has provided you with the very best of round the clock private nursing care, and you say…?"

"While Miss Higurashi is ill, she can say whatever she likes"' Inuyasha's dark drawl slotted in grimly from the far side of the room. "You can take a break, Nurse. I'll stay with your patient.

'

The woman had jerked in dismay at Inuyasha's silent entrance and intervention. Face pink, she moved away from the bed. "Yes, Mr Taisho."

In a sudden burst of energy, Kagome yanked the sheet up over her head.

"And the patient is remarkably lively all of a sudden," Inuyasha remarked as soon as the door closed on the nurse's exit. "And ungrateful as hell. Now, why am I not surprised?"

"Go away," Kagome mumbled, suddenly intensely conscious of lank sweaty hair and spots which had probably multiplied.

"I'm in my own apartment," Inuyasha told her dryly. "And I am not going away. Do you seriously think that I haven't been looking in on you to see how you were progressing over the past few days?"

!I don't care...I'm properly conscious now. If I was so ill, why didn't you just take me to hospital?" Kagome demanded from beneath the sheet.

"The top consultant is a personal friend. Since you responded well to antibiotics, he saw no good reason to move you."

"Nobody consulted me," Kagome complained, and shifted to scratch an itchy place on her hip.

Without warning, the sheet was wrenched back.

"No scratching" Inuyasha gritted down at her with raking impatience. "You'll have scars all over you if you do that. If I catch you at that again, I might well be tempted to tie your hands to the bed!"

Aghast at both the unveiling and the mortifying tone of that insultingly familiar threat, Kagome gazed up at him with outraged blue eyes bright as jewels. "You pig,'"she breathed shakily, registering that he was getting a kick out of her embarrassment. "You had no right to bring me here…"

"You're in no fit state to tell me what to do," Inuyasha reminded her with brutal candor. "And even I draw the line at arguing with an invalid. If it's of any comfort to your wounded vanity, I've discovered that once I got used to the effect the spotty look could be surprisingly appealing."

"Shut up!" Kagome slung at him, and fell back against the pillows, completely winded by the effort it had taken to answer back.

While she struggled to even out her breathing, she studied him with bitter blue eyes. Inullasha looked soul destroying spectacular. He wore a beige designer suit with a tie the shade of rich caramel and a toning silk shirt, The lighter colors threw his exotic darkness into prominence. He exuded sophistication and exquisite cool, and at a moment when Kagome felt more grotty than she had ever felt in her life, she loathed him for it! Rolling over, she presented him with her back.

Maddeningly, Inuyasha strolled round the bed to treat her to an amused appraisal. "I'm lying over to Athens for the next ten days. I suspect you'll recover far more happily in y absence."

"I won't be here when you get back...oh, no, Sango's house has been left empty!" Kagome moaned in sudden guilty dismay.

"I had a professional house sitter brought in." Kagome couldn't even feel grateful. Her heart sank even further. He had settled Toutosai's loan. He had paid for expensive private medical care within his own home. And now he had shelled out for a house sitter as well.

If it took her the rest of her life, she would still be paying off what she now had to owe him in total!

"Thanks," she muttered ungraciously, for her friend's sake.

"Don't mention it," Inuyasha said with considerable irony. "And you will be here when I return. If you're not, I'll come looking for you in a very bad mood..."

"Don't talk like you own me!" she warned him in feverish, frantic denial. "You were with that actress only a few days ago...you were never going to darken my door again…"

"You darkened mine. Oh...yes, before I forget..." Inuyasha withdrew something small and gold from his pocket and tossed it carelessly on the bed beside her.

Stunned, Kagome focused on the bracelet which she had pawned_._ "_"__Ice__Queen__in__pawnshop__penury_" ran the headline in the gossip column," Inuyasha recounted with a sardonic elevation of one ebony brow as he watched Kagome turn brick red with chagrin. "The proprietor must've tipped off the press. I found the ticket in your bag and had the bracelet retrieved."

Wide-eyed and stricken, Kagome just gaped at him. Inuyasha dealt her a scorching smile of reassurance. "You won't have to endure intrusive publicity like that while you are with me. I will protect you. You will never have to enter a pawnshop again. Nor will you ever have to shake your tresses over a misty green Alpine meadow full of wild-flowers...unless you want to do it for my benefit, of course."

Kagome simply closed her eyes on him. She didn't have the energy to fight. He was like a tank in the heat and fury of battle. Nothing short of a direct hit by a very big gun would stop his remorseless progress.

"Silence feels good," Inuyasha remarked with silken satisfaction.

"I hate you," Kagome mumbled, with a good deal of very real feeling.

"You hate wanting me," Inuyasha contradicted with measured emphasis. "It's poetic justice and don't expect sympathy. When I had to think of you lying like a block of ice beneath Toutosai, I did riot enjoy wanting you either!"

Kagome buried her burning face in the pillow with a hoarse little moan of self-pity. He left her nothing to hide behind. And any minute now she expected to be hauled out of concealment. Inuyasha preferred eye-to-eye contact at all times.

"Get some sleep and eat plenty," Inuyasha instructed from somewhere alarmingly close at hand, making her stiffen in apprehension. "You should be well on the road to recovery by the time I get back from Greece."

Kagome's teeth bit into the pillow. Her blood boiled. For an instant she would have sacrificed the rest of her life for the ability to punch him in the mouth just once. She thought he had gone, and lifted her head. But Inuyasha, who never, ever, it seemed, did anything she expected, was still studying her from the door, stunning dark features grave. "By the way, I also expect you to be extremely discreet about this relationship…"

"We don't have a relationship!" Kagome bawled at him. "And I wouldn't admit to having been here in your apartment if the paparazzi put thumbscrews on me!"

Inuyasha absorbed that last promise with unhidden satisfaction. And then, with a casual inclination of his dark, arrogant head, he was gone, and she slumped, weak and shaken as a mouse who had been unexpectedly released from certain death by a cat.

Kagome finished packing her cases. While she had been ill, Inuyasha had had all her clothes brought over from Sango's. The discovery had infuriated her. A few necessities would have been sensible, but everything she possessed? Had he really thought she would be willing to stay on after she recovered?

For the first thirty-six hours after his departure she had fretted and fumed, struggling to push herself too far too fast in her eagerness to vacate his unwelcome hospitality.

The suave consultant had made a final visit to advise her to take things slowly, and the shift of nursing staff had departed, but Kagome had had to face that she was still in no fit state to look after herself. So she had been sensible. She had taken advantage of the opportunity to convalesce and recharge her batteries while she was waited on hand and foot by the Greek domestic staff...but now she was leaving before Inuyasha returned. In any case, Sango was coming home at lunchtime.

Two of Inuyasha's security men were hovering in the vast echoing entrance hall. Taut with anxiety, they watched her stagger towards them with her suitcases. Neither offered an ounce of assistance.

'Mr Taisho is not expecting…" the bigger, older one finally began stiffly.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of this!" Kagome thumped the lift button with a clenched fist of warning.

'Mr Taisho doesn't want you to leave, Miss Higurashi. He's going to be annoyed." Kagome opened dark blue eyes very, very wide. "So?"

"We'll be forced to follow you, Miss Higurashi…"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, boys," Kagome murmured gently. "I would hate to call in the police because I was being harassed by stalkers. It would be sure to get into the papers too, and I doubt that your boss would enjoy that kind of publicity!"

In the act of stepping forward as the lift doors folded back, both men froze into frustrated

stillness. Kagome dragged her luggage into the lift.

"A word of advice," the older one breathed heavily. "He makes a relentless enemy."

Kagome tossed her head in a dismissive movement. Then the doors shut and she sagged. No wonder Inuyasha threw his weight around so continually. Everybody was terrified of him. Unlimited wealth and power had made him what he was. His ruthless reputation chilled, his lethal influence threatened. The world had taught him that he could have whatever he wanted. Only not her...never ever her, she swore vehemently. Her mind was her own. Her body was her own. She was inviolate. Inuyasha couldn't touch her, she reminded herself bracingly.

The house sitter vacated Sango's house after contacting her employer for instructions. Alone then, and tired out by the early start to the day, Kagome felt very low. Making herself a cup of coffee, she checked through the small pile of post in the lounge. One of the envelopes was addressed to her; it had been redirected.

The letter appeared to be from an estate agent. Initially mystified, Kagome struggled across the barrier of her dyslexia to make sense of the communication. The agent wrote that he had been unable to reach her father at his last known address but that she had been listed by Onigumo as a contact point. He required instructions concerning a rental property which was now vacant. Memories began to stir in Kagome's mind.

Her father's comfortably off parents had died when she was still a child. A black sheep within his own family even then, Onigumo had inherited only a tiny cottage on the outskirts of a Cambridge shire village. He had been even less pleased to discover that the cottage came with an elderly sitting tenant, who had not the slightest intention of moving out to enable him to sell up.

Abandoning the letter without having got further than the third line, Kagome telephoned the agent. "I can't tell you where my father is at present," she admitted ruefully. "I haven't heard from him in some time."

"The old lady has moved in with relatives. If your father wants to attract another tenant, he'll have to spend a lot on repairs and modernization. However," the agent continued with greater enthusiasm, "I believe the property would sell very well as a site for building development."

And of course that would be what Onigumo would want, Kagome reflected. He would sell and a few months down the road the proceeds would be gone again, wasted on the racecourse or the dog track. Her troubled face stiffening with resolve, Kagome slowly breathed in and found herself asking if it would be in order for her to come and pick up the keys.

She came off the phone again, so shaken by the ideas mushrooming one after another inside her head that she could scarcely think straight. But she did need a home, and she had always loved the countryside. If she had the courage, she could make a complete fresh start. Why not? What did she have left in London? The dying remnants of a career which had done her infinitely more harm than good? She could find a job locally. Shop work, bar work; she wasn't fussy. As a teenager Kagome had done both, and she had no false pride.

By the time Sango came home, Kagome was bubbling with excitement. In some astonishment, Sango listened to the enthusiastic plans that the younger woman had already formulated.

"If the cottage is in a bad way, it could cost a fortune to put it right, Kagome," she pointed out anxiously, "I don't want to be a wet blanket, but by the sound of things…"

"Sango.. .I never did want to be a model and I'm not getting any work right now," Kagome reminded her ruefully. "This could be my chance to make a new life and, whatever it takes, I want to give it a try. I'll tell the agency where I am so that if anything does come up they can contact me, but I certainly can't afford to sit around here doing nothing. At least if I start earning again, I can start paying back Inuyasha."

If Kagome could've avoided telling Sango about the house-sitter and her own illness, she would've done so. But Sango had a right to know that a stranger had been looking after her home. However, far from being troubled by that revelation, Sango was much more concerned to learn that Kagome had been ill. She was also mortifyingly keen to glean every detail of the role which Taisho Inuyasha had played.

"I swear that man is madly in love with you!" Sango shook her head in wonderment. Kagome vented a distinctly unamused laugh, her eyes incredulous. " Inuyasha wouldn't know love if it leapt up and bit him to the bone! But he will go to any lengths to get what he wants. I suspect he thinks that the more indebted he makes me, the easier he'll wear down my resistance…"

"Kagome...if he'd left you lying here alone in this house, you might be dead. Don't you even feel the slightest bit grateful?" Kagome prompted uncomfortably. "He could've just called an ambulance…"

"Thereby missing out on the chance to get me into his power when I was helpless?" Kagome breathed cynically. "No way. I know how he operates. I know how he thinks."

"Then you must have much more in common with him than you're prepared to admit," Sango commented.

Kagome arrived at the cottage two days later. With dire mutters, the cabbie nursed his car up the potholed lane. In the sunshine, the cottage looked shabby, but it had a lovely setting. There was a stream ten feet from the front door and a thick belt of mature trees that provided shelter.

She had some money in her bank account again too. She had liquidated a good half of her wardrobe. Ruthlessly piling up all the expensive designer clothes which Toutosai had insisted on buying her, Kagome had sold them to a couple of those wonderful shops which recycle used quality garments.

Half an hour later, having explored her new home, Kagome's enthusiasm was undimmed. So what if the accommodation was basic and the entire place crying out for paint and a seriously good scrub? As for the repairs the agent had mentioned, Kagome was much inclined to think he had been exaggerating.

She was utterly charmed by the inglenook fireplace in the little front room and determined not to take fright at the minuscule scullery and the spooky bathroom with its ancient cracked china. Although the furnishings were worn and basic, there were a couple of quite passable Edwardian pieces. The new bed she had bought would be delivered later in the day.

She was about a mile from the nearest town. As soon as she had the bed made up, she would call in at the hotel she had noticed on the main street to see if there was any work going. In the middle of the tourist season, she would be very much surprised if there wasn't an opening somewhere ...

Five days later, Kagome was three days into an evening job that was proving infinitely more stressful than she had anticipated. The pace of a waitress in a big, busy bar was frantic.

And why, oh, why hadn't she asked whether the hotel bar served meals before she accepted the job? She could carry drinks orders quite easily in her head, but she had been driven into trying to employ a frantic shorthand of numbers when it came to trying to cope at speed with the demands of a large menu and all the innumerable combinations possible. She just couldn't write fast enough.

Kagome saw Inuyasha the minute he walked into the bar. The double doors thrust back noisily. He made an entrance. People twisted their heads to glance and then paused to stare. Command and authority written in every taut line of his tall, powerful frame, Inuyasha stood out like a giant among pygmies.

Charcoal-grey suit, white silk shirt, smooth gold tie. He looked filthy rich, imposing and utterly out of place. And Kagome's heart started to go bang-bang-bang beneath her uniform.

He had the most incredible traffic-stopping presence. Suddenly the crowded room with its low ceiling and atmospheric lighting felt suffocating hot and airless.

For a split second Inuyasha remained poised, golden eyes raking across the bar to close in on Kagome. She had the mesmerized, panicked look of a rabbit caught in car headlights.

His incredulous stare of savage impatience zapped her even at a distance of thirty feet. Sucking in oxygen in a great gulp, Kagome struggled to finish writing down the order she was taking on her notepad. Gathering up the menus again, she headed for the kitchens at a fast trot. But it wasn't fast enough. Inuyasha somehow got in the way.

"Take a break," he instructed in a blistering undertone.

"How the heck did you find out where I was?"

"Hyata Midoriko at the Star modeling agency was eager to please." Inuyasha watched Kagome's eyes flare with angry comprehension. "Most people are rather reluctant to say no to me."

In an abrupt move, Kagome sidestepped him and hurried into the kitchen. When she reemerged, Inuyasha was sitting at one of her tables. She ignored him, but never had she been more outrageously aware of being watched. Her body felt uncoordinated and clumsy. Her hands perspired and developed a shake. She spilt a drink and had to fetch another while the woman complained scathingly about the single tiny spot that had splashed her handbag.

Finally the young bar manager, Hachi, approached her. "That big dark bloke at table six...haven't you noticed him?" he enquired apologetically, studying her beautiful face with the same poleaxed expression he had been wearing ever since he'd hired her. With an abstracted frown, he looked across at Inuyasha, who was tapping long brown fingers with rampant impatience on the tabletop. "It's odd. There's something incredibly familiar about the bloke but I can't think where I've seen him before."

Kagome forced herself over to table six. "Yes?" she prompted tautly, and focused exclusively on that expensive gold tie while all the time inwardly picturing the derision in those penetrating golden eyes.

"That uniform is so short you look like a bloody French maid in a bedroom farce!" Inuyasha informed her grittily. "Every time you bend over, every guy in here is craning his neck to get a better view! And that practice appears to include the management."

Kagome's face burned, outrage flashing in her blue eyes. The bar had a Victorian theme, and the uniform was a striped overall with a silly little frilly apron on top. It did look rather odd on a woman of her height and unusually long length of leg, but she had already let down the hemline as far as it would go. "Do you or do you not want a drink?" she demanded thinly.

"I'd like the table cleared and cleaned first,'"Inuyasha announced with a glance of speaking distaste at the cluttered surface. "Then you can bring me a brandy and sit down."

"Don't be ridiculous...I'm working." Kagome piled up the dishes with a noisy clatter, and in accidentally slopping coffee over the table forced him to lunge back at speed from the spreading flood.

"You're working for me, and if I say you can sit down, I expect you to do as you're told," Inuyasha delivered in his deep, dark, domineering drawl.

Engaged in mopping up, Kagome stilled. "I beg your pardon? You said...I was working for you?" she queried.

"This hotel belongs to my chain," Inuyasha ground out. "And I am anything but impressed by what I see here."

Kagome turned cold with shock. Inuyasha owned this hotel? She backed away with the dishes. As she was hailed from the kitchen, she watched with a sinking stomach as Inuyasha signalled Hachi. When she reappeared with a loaded tray, Hachi was seated like a pale, perspiring graven image in front of Inuyasha.

She hurried to deliver the meals she had collected but there was a general outcry of loud and exasperated complaint.

"I didn't order this..." the first customer objected. "I asked for salad, not French fries…"

"And I wanted garlic potatoes…"

"This steak is rare, not well-done..."

The whole order was hopelessly mixed up. A tall, dark shadow fell menacingly over the table. In one easy movement, Inuyasha lifted Kagome's pad from her pocket, presumably to check out the protests.

"What is this?" he demanded, frowning down at the pages as he flipped. "Egyptian hieroglyphics... some secret code? Nobody could read this back!"

Kagome was paralyzed to the spot; her face was bone-white. Her tummy lurched with nausea and her legs began to shake. "I got confused, I'm sorry. I…"

Inuyasha angled a smooth smile at the irate diners and ignored her. "Don't worry, it will be sorted out as quickly as possible. Your meals are on the house. Move, Kagome," he added in a whiplike warning aside.

Hachi, she noticed sickly, was over at the bar using the internal phone. He looked like a man living a nightmare. And when she came out of the kitchen again, an older man, whom she recognized as the manager of the entire hotel, was with Inuyasha, and he had the desperate air of a man walking a tightrope above a terrifying drop. Suddenly Kagome felt like the albatross that had brought tragedy to an entire ship's crew. Inuyasha, it seemed, was taking out his black temper on his staff. Her own temper rose accordingly. How the heck could she have guessed that he owned this hotel? She recalled the innumerable marble plaques in the huge foyer of the Taisho building in London.

Those plaques had listed the components of Inuyasha's vast and diverse business empire. Taisho Steel, Taisho Property, and ditto Shipping, Haulage, Communications, Construction, Media Services, Investments, Insurance. No doubt she had forgotten a good half-dozen. TAI— Taisho Amalgamated Industries—had been somewhat easier to recall.

"Kagome...I mean, Miss Higurashi," Hachi said awkwardly, stealing an uneasy glance at her and making her wonder what Inuyasha had said or done to make him behave like that. But not for very long. 'Mr Taisho says you can take the rest of the night off."

Kagome stiffened. "Sorry, I'm working."

Hachi looked aghast. "But…"

"I was engaged to work tonight and I need the money." Kagome tilted her chin in challenge.

She banged a brandy down in front of Inuyasha." You're nothing but a big, egocentric bully!" she slung at him with stinging scorn.

A lean hand closed round her elbow before she could stalk away again. Color burnished her cheeks as Inuyasha forced her back to his side with the kind of male strength that could not be fought without making a scene. Golden eyes as dark as the legendary underworld of Hades slashed threat into hers. "If I gave you a spade, you would happily dig your own grave. Go and get your coat…"

"No...this is my job and I'm not walking out on it."

"Let me assist you to make that decision. You're sacked..." Inuyasha slotted in with ruthless bite.

With her free hand, Kagome swept up the brandy and upended it over his lap. In an instant she was free. With an unbelieving growl of anger, Inuyasha vaulted upright.

"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!" Kagome flung fiercely, and stalked off, shoulders back, classic nose in the air.

n/a:: i'M SOOOOOOOOO SORRY I din't update the last couple of weeks.. but I have a very good reason... I meet a guy and well... all of you might know that he kept me busy XD... I hope you liked ths chapter... I will be posting the new one soon n.n


	5. Married to a Mistress 5

This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.

CHAPTER FIVE

Hatchi was waiting for Kagome outside the staff-room when she emerged in her jeans and T-shirt. Pale and still bug-eyed with shock, he gaped at her. "You must be out of your mind to treat Taisho Inuyasha like that!"

"Envy me...I don't work for him anymore." Kagome flung her ebony head high. "May I have my pay now, please?"

"Y-your pay?" the young bar manager stammered.

"Is my reaction to being forcibly held to the spot by the owner of this hotel chain sufficient excuse to withhold it?" Kagome enquired very drily.

The silence thundered.

"I'll get your money...I don't really think I want to raise that angle with Mr Taisho right now," Hatchi confided weakly.

Ten minutes later Kagome walked out of the hotel, grimacing when she realized that it was still pouring with rain. It had been lashing down all day and she had got soaked walking into town in spite of her umbrella. Every passing car had splashed her. A long, low-slung sports car pulled into the kerb beside her and the window buzzed down.

"Get in"' Inuyasha told her in a positive snarl.

"Go take a hike! You can push around your staff but you can't push me around!"

"Push around? Surely you noticed how sloppily that bar was being run?" Inuyasha growled in disbelief. Thrusting open the car door, he climbed out to glower down at her in angry reproof, "insufficient and surly staff, customers kept waiting, the kitchens in chaos, the tables dirty and even the carpet in need of replacement! If the management don't either act together fast, I'll replace them. They're not doing their jobs."

Taken aback by his genuine vehemence, Kagome nonetheless suppressed the just awareness that she herself had been less than impressed by what she had seen. He had changed too, she noticed furiously. He must have had a change of clothes with him, because now he was wearing a spectacular suit of palest grey that had the exquisite fit of a kid glove on his lean powerful frame.

Powered by sizzling adrenaline alone, Kagome studied that lean, strong face. "I hate you for following me down here…"

"You were waiting for me to show up..."

Her facial muscles froze. The minute Inuyasha said it, she knew it was true. She had known he would track her down and find her.

"I'm walking home. I'm not getting into your car," she informed him while she absently noted that, yet again, he was getting wet for her. Black hair curling, bronzed cheekbones shimmering damply in the street lights.

"I have not got all night to waste, waiting for you to walk home," Inuyasha asserted rathfully.

"So you know where I'm living" Kagome gathered in growing rage, and then she thought_,"What am I doing here standing talking to him?"_ "Well, don't you dare come there because I won't open the door!"

"You could be attacked walking down a dark country road," Inuyasha ground out, shooting her a flaming look of antipathy. "Is it worth the risk?"

Angling her umbrella to a martial angle, Kagome spun on her heel and proceeded to walk. She hadn't gone ten yards before her flowing hair and long easy stride attracted the attention of a bunch of hard-faced youths lounging in a shop doorway. Their shouted obscenities made her stiffen and quicken her pace.

From behind her, she heard Inuyasha grate something savage.

A hand came down without warning on Kagome's tense shoulder and she uttered a startled yelp. As she attempted to yank herself free, everything happened very fast. Inuyasha waded in and slung a punch at the offender. With a menacing roar, the boy's mates rushed to the rescue. Inuyasha disappeared into the fray and Kagome screamed and screamed at the top of her voice in absolute panic.

"Get off him!" she shrieked, laying about the squirming clutch of heaving bodies with vicious jabs of her umbrella and her feet as well.

Simultaneously a noisy crowd came out of the pub across the street and just as suddenly the scrum broke and scattered. Kagome knelt down on the wet pavement beside Inuyasha's prone body and pushed his curling wet black hair off his brow, noting the pallor of his dark skin. 'You stupid fool...you stupid, stupid fool,' she moaned shakily. inuyasha lifted his head and shook it in a rather jerky movement. Slowly he began to pick himself up. Blood was running down his temples.

"There were five of them," he grated, with clenched and bruised fists.

"Get in your car and shut up in case they come back," Kaogme muttered, tugging suggestively at his arm. "Other people don't want to get involved these days. You could've been hammered to a pulp—"

"Them and who else?" Inuyasha flared explosively, all male ego and fireworks.

"The police station is just down the street.."

"I'm not going to the police over the head of those little punks!" Inuyasha snarled, staggering slightly and spreading his long powerful legs to steady himself. "I got in punch or two of my own—"

"Not as many as they did " Kagome hauled at his sleeve and by dint of sustained pressure nudged him round to the passenger side of his opulent sports car.

"What are you doing?"

"You're not fit to drive—"

"Since when?" he interrupted in disbelief.

Kagome yanked open the door. "Please, Inuyasha...you're bleeding, you're probably concussed. Just for once in your wretched life, do as someone else asks."

He stood there and thought about that stunning concept for a whole twenty seconds. There was a definite struggle taking place and then, with a muffled curse, he gradually and stiffly lowered himself down into the passenger seat.

"Can you drive a Ferrari?" he enquired.

"Of course," Kagome responded between clenched teeth of determination, no better than him at backing down.

The Ferrari lurched and jerked up the road.

"Lights," Inuyasha muttered weakly. 'I think you should have the lights on...or maybe I should just close my eyes—"

"Shut up...I'm trying to concentrate!"

Having mastered the lights and located the right gear, Kagome continued, "It was typical of you to go leaping in, fists flying. Where are your security guards, for goodness' sake?"

"How dare you"' Inuyasha splintered, leaning forward with an outrage somewhat tempered by the groan he emitted as the seat belt forced him to rest back again. "I can look after myself—"

"Against five of them?" Kagome's strained mouth compressed, her stomach still curdling at what she had witnessed. Damn him, damn him. She felt so horribly guilty and shaken.

"I'm taking you to Casualty—"

"I don't need a doctor...I'm OK," Inuyasha bit out in exasperation.

"If you drop dead from a skull fracture or something," she said grimly, "i don't want to feel responsible!"

"I have cuts and bruises, nothing more. I have no need of a hospital. All I want to do is lie down for a while and then I'll call for a car."

He sounded more like himself. Domineering and organized. Kagome mulled over that unspoken demand for a place to lie down while she crept along the road in the direction of the cottage at the slowest speed a Ferrari had probably ever been driven at. Then the heavy rain was bouncing off the windscreen and visibility was poor. "All right...I'll take you home with me—but just for an hour" she warned tautly.

"You are so gracious."

Kagome reddened, conscience-stricken when she recalled the amount of trouble he had taken to ensure that she was properly looked after when she was ill. But then Inuyasha had not been personally inconvenienced; he had paid others to take on the caring role. In fact, as she drove up the lane to the cottage, she knew she could not imagine Inuyasha allowing himself to be inconvenienced.

Her attention distracted, she was wholly unprepared to find herself driving through rippling water as she began to turn in at the front of the cottage. In alarm, she braked sharply, and without warning the powerful car went into a skid. "Oh, God!" she gasped in horror as the front wheels went over the edge of the stream bank. The Ferrari tipped into the stream nose-first with a jarring thud and came to rest at an extreme angle.

"God wasn't listening, but at least we're still alive," Inuyasha groaned as he reached over and switched off the engine, "I suppose you're about to kick up a whole macho fuss now, and yap about women drivers,"Kagome hissed, un-clamping her locked fingers from the steering wheel.

"I wouldn't dare. Knowing my luck in your radius, I'd step out of the car and drown."

"The stream is only a couple of feet deep!"

"I feel so comforted knowing that." With a powerful thrust of his arm, Inuyasha forced the passenger door open and staggered out onto the muddy bank. Then he reached in to haul her out with stunning strength.

"I'm sorry... I got a fright when I saw that water."

"It was only a large puddle. What do you do when you see the sea?"

"I thought the stream had flooded and broken its banks, and I wanted to be sure we didn't go over the edge in the dark...that's why I jumped on the brakes!" Fumbling for her key, not wishing to dwell on quite how unsuccessful her evasive tactics had been, Kagome unlocked the battered front door and switched on the light.

Inuyasha lowered his wildly tousled dark head to peer, unimpressed, into the bare lounge with its two seater hard-backed settee. Without the fire lit or a decorative face lift, it didn't look very welcoming, she had to admit.

"All right, upstairs is a bit more comfortable. You can lie down on my bed."

"I can hardly believe your generosity. Where's the phone?"

Kagome frowned, "i don't have one."

Tangled wet black lashes swept up on stunned eyes. "That's a joke?"

"Surely you have a mobile phone?"

"I must've dropped it in the street during the fight." With a mutter of frustrated Greek, Inuyasha started up the narrow staircase.

He was a little unsteady on his feet, and Kagome noted that fact anxiously."I think you need a doctor, Inuyasha."

"Rubbish...just want to lie down—"

"Duck your head!" she warned a split second too late as he collided headfirst with the lintel above the bedroom door.

"Oh, no," Kagome groaned in concert with him, and shot out both arms to support him as he reeled rather dangerously on the tiny landing. Hurriedly she guided him into the bedroom before he could do any further damage to himself.

"There's puddles on the floor" Inuyasha remarked, blinking rapidly.

"Don't be silly," Kagome told him, just as a big drop of water from somewhere above splashed down on her nose.

Aghast, she tipped back her head to gaze up at the vaulted wooden roof above, which she had thought was so much more attractive and unusual than a ceiling. Droplets of water were suspended in several places and there were puddles on the floorboards. The roof was leaking.

"I'm in the little hovel in the woods," Inuyasha framed.

Kagome said a most unladylike word and darted over to the bed to check that it wasn't wet. Mercifully it appeared to be occupying the only dry corner in the room, but she wrenched back the bedding to double-check. Inuyasha dropped down on the edge of the divan and tugged off his jacket. It fell in a puddle. She snatched up the garment and clutched it as she met dazed black eyes. "I shouldn't have listened you. I should've taken you to Casualty."

"i have a very sore head and I am slightly disorientated. That is all." Inuyasha coined the assurance with arrogant emphasis. "Stop treating me like a child."

"How many fingers do you see?" In her anxiety, Kagome stuck out her thumb instead of the forefinger she had intended.

"I see one thumb," he said very drily. "Was that a trick question?"

Flushing a deep pink, Kagome bridled as he yanked off his tie. "Do you have to undress?"

"I am not lying down in wet clothes," Inuyasha informed her loftily.

"I'll leave you, then...well, I need to get some bowls for the drips anyway," Kagome mumbled awkwardly on her passage out through the door.

Just the thought of Inuyasha unclothed shot a shocking current of snaking heat right through her trembling body. It was only nervous tension, Kagome told herself urgently as she went downstairs, the result of delayed shock after that horrendous outbreak of masculine violence in the street. She had been really scared, but Inuyasha was too bonedeep macho and stupid to have been scared. However, she should have forced him to go to the local hospital... but how did you force a male as spectacularly stubborn as Inuyasha to do something he didn't want to do, and surely there couldn't be anything really serious wrong with him when he could still be so sarcastic?

In the scullery, she picked up a bucket and a mop, and then abandoned them to pour some disinfectant into a bowl of water instead. She needed to see close up how bad that cut was. Had he been unconscious for several seconds after the youths had run off? His eyes had been closed, those ridiculously long lashes down like black silk fans and almost hitting his cheekbones. Dear heaven, what was the matter with her? Her mind didn't feel like her own any more.

Inuyasha was under her rosebud-sprigged sheets when she hesitantly entered the bedroom again. His eyes seemed closed. She moistened her lower lip with a nervous flick of her tongue. She took in the blatant virility of his big brown shoulders, the rough black curls of hair sprinkling what she could see of his powerful pectoral muscles and that vibrant golden skintone that seemed to cover all of him, and which looked so noticeable against her pale bedding...

"You're supposed to stay awake if you have concussion," she scolded sharply in response to those unnecessarily intimate observations. Stepping close to the bed, she jabbed at a big brown shoulder and swiftly withdrew her hand from the heat of him again as if she had been scalded, her fair skin burning.

Those amazing golden eyes snapped open on her.

"You're bleeding all over my pillow," Kagome censured, her throat constricting as she ran completely out of breath.

"I'll buy you a new one."

"No, you buy nothing for me...and you lie still," she instructed unevenly. "I need to see that cut."

With an embarrassingly unsteady hand and a pad of kitchen toweling, Kagome cleaned away the blood. As she exposed the small seeping wound, a beautifully shaped brown hand lifted and closed round the delicate bones of her wrist. "You're shaking like a leaf."

"You might've been knifed or something. I still feel sick thinking about it. But I could've dealt with that kid on my own—"

"I think not...his mates were already moving in to have some fun. Nor would it have cost them much effort to drag you round the corner down that alleyway—"

"Well, I'm not about to thank you. If you had stayed away from me, it wouldn't have happened," Kagome stated tightly. "I'd have stayed in the hotel until closing time and got a lift home with the barman. He lives a couple of miles on down the road."

With that final censorious declaration, Kagome pulled herself free and took the bowl downstairs again. She would have to go back up and mop the floor but it was true, she was shaking like a leaf and her legs felt like jelly. Unfortunately it wasn't all the result of shock. Seeing Inuyasha in her bed, wondering like a nervous adolescent how much, if anything, he was wearing, hadn't helped.

Five minutes later she went back up, with a motley collection of containers to catch the drips and the mop and bucket. In silence, she did what had to be done, but she was horribly mortified by the necessity, not to mention furious with herself for dismissing the agent's assessment of the cottage's condition on the phone. This was the first time it had rained since she had moved in and clearly either a new roof or substantial repairs would be required to make the cottage waterproof before winter set in. It was doubtful that she could afford even repairs.

As each receptacle was finally correctly positioned to catch the drips from overhead, a cacophony of differing noises started up. Split, splat, splash, plop... "How are you feeling?" Kagome asked thinly above that intrusive backdrop of constant drips.

"Fantastically rich and spoilt. Indoors, water belongs in the bathroom or the swimming pool," Inuyasha opined with sardonic cool. "I can't credit that you would prefer to risk drowning under a roof that leaks like a sieve sooner than come to me."

"Credit it. Nothing you could do or say would convince me otherwise. I don't want to live with any man—"

"I wasn't actually asking you to live with me," Inuyasha delivered in gentle contradiction, his sensual mouth quirking. "I like my own space. I would buy you your own place and visit—"

An angry flush chased Kagome's strained pallor. "I'm not for sale—"

"Except for a wedding ring?" Inuyasha vented a roughened laugh of cynical amusement."Oh, yes, I got the message. Very naive, but daring. I may be obsessed with a need to possess that exquisite body that trembles with sexual hunger whenever I am close," he murmured silkily, reaching up with a confident hand to close his fingers over hers and draw her down beside him before she even registered what he was doing, "but, while I will fulfill any other desire or ambition with pleasure, that one is out of reach, pethi mou. Concentrate on the possible, not the wildly improbable."

"If you didn't already have a head injury, I'd swing for you!" Kagome slung fiercely. "Let go of me!"

In the controlled and easy gesture of a very strong male, Inuyasha released her with a wry smile. "At the end of the day, Toutosai did quite a number on your confidence, didn't he? Oh, yes, I know that he dispatched you from the hospital and screeched for Kaede. Suddenly you found yourself back on the street, alone and without funds. So I quite understand why you should decide that a husband would be a safer bet than a lover next time around. However, I am not Toutosai..."

Kagome stared down into those stunning dark golden eyes. Fear and fascination fought for supremacy inside her. She could feel the raw magnetism of him reaching out to entrap her and she knew her own weakness more and more with every passing second in his company. She hated him but she wanted him too, with a bone-deep yearning for physical contact that tormented her this close to him. She was appalled by the strength of his sexual sway over her, shattered that she could be so treacherously vulnerable with a male of his ilk.

!Come here...stop holding back," Inuyasha urged softly. "Neither of us can win a battle like this. Do we not both suffer? I faithfully promise that I will never, ever take advantage of you as Toutosai did—"

"What are you trying to do right now?" Kagome condemned strikingly.

"Trying to persuade you that trusting me would be in your best interests. And I'm not laying a finger on you," Inuyasha added, as if he expected acclaim for that remarkable restraint.

And the terrible irony, she registered then, was that she wanted him to touch her. Her bright eyes pools of sapphire-blue dismay and hunger, she stared down at him. Reaching up to loosen the band confining her hair to the nape of her neck. Inuyasha trailed it gently free to wind Jong brown fingers into the tumbling strands and slowly tug her down to him.

"But that's not what you want either, is it?" he said perceptively.

Her skin burning beneath the caress of the blunt forefinger that skated along her tremulous and full lower lip, she shivered violently. _"But I won't give in. This attraction means nothing to me,"_ she swore raggedly_," it won't influence my brain—'_

"What a heady challenge..." Golden eyes flaring with heat held her sensually bemused gaze.

"I'm not a challenge, I'm a woman..." Kagome fumbled in desperation to make her feelings clear but she didn't have the words or, it seemed, the self-discipline to pull back from his embrace.

"A hell of a woman, to fight me like this," Kagome confirmed, with a thickened appreciation that made her heart pound like mad in her eardrums and a tide of disorientating dizziness enclose her. "A woman worth fighting for. If you could just rise above this current inconvenient desire to turn over a new leaf—"

"But—"

"No buts." Inuyasha leant up to brush his lips in subtle glancing punishment over her parted ones, scanning her with fierce sexual hunger and conviction. "You need me."

"No..." she whispered feverishly.

"Yes..." Dipping his tongue in a snaking explorative flick into her open mouth, Inuyasha jolted her with such an overpowering stab of excitement, she almost collapsed down on top of him.

Pressing his advantage with a ruthless sense of timing, Inuyasha tumbled her the rest of the way and gathered her into his arms. She gasped again, "No."

The palm curving over a pouting, swollen breast stilled. Her nipple was a hard, straining bud that ached and begged for his attention, and she let her swimming head drop down on the pillow while she fought desperately for control. She focused on him. The brilliant eyes, the strong nose, the ruthless mouth. And that appalling tide of painful craving simply mushroomed instead of fading.

"No?" Inuyasha queried lazily.

She inched forward like a moth to a candle flame, seeking the heat and virility she could not resist, all thought suspended. He recognized surrender when he saw it, and with a wolfish smile of reward he closed his mouth hungrily over hers and she burned up like a shooting star streaking through the heavens at impossible speed, embracing destruction as if she had been born to seek it.

He curved back from her when her every sense was thrumming unbearably, her whole body shaking on a peak of frantic anticipation, and eased one hand beneath the T-shirt to curve it to her bare breasts. She whimpered and jerked, the most terrifying surge of hunger taking over as his expert fingers tugged on her tender nipples and then his caressing mouth went there instead. For long, timeless minutes, Kagome was a shuddering wreck of writhing, gasping response, clutching at him, clutching at his hair, her denim clad hips rising off the bed in helpless invitation.

Abruptly Inuyasha tensed and jerked up his dark head, frowning. "What's that?" he demanded.

"W-what's what?" she stammered blankly.

"Someone's thumping on the front door." By then already engaged in gaping down at her own shamelessly bared breasts, the damp evidence of his carnal ministrations making the distended pink buds look even more wanton, Kagome gulped. With a low moan of distress she threw herself off the bed onto quaking legs.

"You swine," she accused shakily, hauling down her T-shirt, crossing trembling arms and then rushing for the stairs.

She flung open the front door. Her nearest neighbor, Hinten Thunder, who had called in to introduce himself the day before, stared in at her. "Are you aware that you have a Ferrari upended in your stream?"

Dumbly, still trembling from the narrowness of her escape from Inuyasha and his seductive wiles, Kagome nodded like a wooden marionette.

The Dark haired veterinary surgeon frowned down at her. "I was driving home and I saw this strange shape from the road, and, knowing you're on your own here, I thought I'd better check it out. Are you OK?"

"The driver's upstairs, lying down," Kagome managed to say.

"Want me to take a look?"

"No need," she hastened to assert breathlessly.

"Do you want me to ring a doctor?'"

Kagome focused on the mobile in its holder at his waist. "I'd be terribly grateful if you'd let me use that to make a call."

"No problem..." Hinten said easily, and passed the phone over. "Mind if I step in out of the rain?"

"Sorry, not at all."

Kagome walked upstairs rigid-backed, crossed the room and plunked the phone down on the bed beside Inuyasha. "Call for transport out of here or I'll throw you out in the rain!"

His stunningly handsome features froze into impassivity, but not before she saw the wild burn of outrage flare in the depths of his brilliant eyes. He stabbed the buttons, loosed a flood of bitten-out Greek instructions and then, cutting the connection, sprang instantly out of bed. Maddeningly, he swayed slightly.

But Kagome was less affected by that than by her first intimidating look at a naked and very aroused male. Coloring hotly, she dragged her shaken scrutiny from him and fled downstairs again.

"Thanks," she told Hinten.

"Had a drink or two, had he?" Wicked putting a machine like that in for a swim," Hinten remarked with typical male superiority as he moved very slowly back to the door. "Your boyfriend?"

"No, he's not."

"Dinner with me then, tomorrow night?"

Words of automatic refusal brimmed on Kagome's lips, and then she hesitated. "Why not?" she responded after that brief pause for thought. She was well aware that Inuyasha had to be hearing every word of the conversation.

"Wonderful!" Patrick breathed with unconcealed pleasure. "Eight suit you?"

"Lovely."

She watched him swing cheerfully back into his four-wheel drive and thought about how open and uncomplicated he was in comparison to Inuyasha, who was so devious and manipulative he would contrive to zigzag down a perfectly straight line. And she hated Inuyasha, she really did.

Hot tears stung her eyes then, and she blinked them back furiously. She hated him for showing her all over again how weak and foolish she could be. She hated that cool, clever brain he pitted against her, that brilliantly persuasive tongue that could make the unacceptable sound tempting, and that awesome and terrifying sexual heat he unleashed on her whenever she was vulnerable.

Barely five minutes later, Inuyasha strode fully dressed into the front room where she was waiting. He radiated black fury, stormy eyes glittering, sensual mouth compressed, rock-hard jaw line at an aggressive angle. His hostile vibrations lanced through the already tense atmosphere, threatening to set it on fire.

"You bitch..." Inuyasha breathed, so hoarsely it sounded as if he could hardly get the words out. "One minute you're in bed with me and the next you're making a date with another man within my hearing!"

"I wasn't in bed with you, not the way you're implying." Her slender hands knotted into taut fists of determination by her side, Kagome stood her ground, cringing with angry self-loathing only inside herself.

"You don't want any other man!" Inuyasha launched at her with derisive and shocking candor. "You want me"

Kagome was bone-white, her knees wobbling. In a rage, Inuyasha was pure intimidation; there was nothing he would not say. "I won't be your mistress. I made that clear that from the start," she countered in a ragged rush. "And even if I had slept with you just now, I would still have asked you to leave. I will not be cajoled, manipulated or seduced into a relationship that I would find degrading—"

"Only an innocent can be seduced." His accent harshened with incredulity over that particular choice of word. Degrading?' Outrage clenched his vibrant dark features hard.

"Fool that I am, I would have treated you like a precious jewel!"

Locked up tight somewhere, to be enjoyed only in the strictest privacy, Kagome translated, deeply unimpressed.

"I know you don't believe me. but I was never Toutosai's mistress—"

"Did you call yourself his lover instead?" Inuyasha derided.

Kagome swallowed convulsively. "No, I—"

Golden eyes clashed with hers in near physical assault. "Theos...how blind I have been! All along you've been scheming to extract a better offer from me. One step forward, two steps back. You run and I chase. You tease and I pursue," he enumerated in harsh condemnation. "And now you're trying to turn the screw by playing me off against another man—"

"No!" Kagome gasped, unnerved by the twisted light he saw her in.

Inuyasha growled, "If you think for one second that you can force me to offer a wedding ring for the right to enjoy that beautiful body, you are certifiably insane!"

His look of unconcealed contempt sent scorching anger tearing through Kagome. "Really...? Well, isn't that just a shame, when it's the only offer I would ever settle for," she stated, ready to use any weapon to hold him at bay.

Evidently somewhat stunned to have his worst suspicions so baldly confirmed, Inuyasha jerked as if he had run into a brick wall. He snatched in a shuddering breath, his nostrils flaring. "If I ever marry, my wife will be a lady with breeding, background and a decent reputation."

Kagome flinched, stomach turning over sickly. She had given him a knife and he had plunged it in without compunction. But ferocious pride as great as his own, and hot, violent loathing enabled her to treat him to a scornful appraisal. "But you'll still have a mistress, won't you?"

"Naturally I would choose a wife with my brain, not my libido," Inuyasha returned drily, but he had ducked the question and a dark, angry rise of blood had scoured his blunt cheekbones.

Kagome gave an exaggerated little shiver of revulsion. The atmosphere was explosive. She could feel his struggle to maintain control over that volatile temperament so much at war with that essentially cool intellect of his. It was etched in every restive, powerfully physical movement he made with his expressive hands and she rejoiced at the awareness, ramming down the stark bitterness and sense of pained inadequacy he had filled her with. "You belong in the Natural History Museum alongside the dinosaur bones."

"When I walk through that door I will never come back...how will you like that?"

"Would you like to start walking now?"

"What I would like is to take you on that bed upstairs and teach you just once exactly what you're missing!"

Wildly unprepared for that roughened admission,Kagome collided with golden eyes ablaze with frustration. It was like being dragged into a fire and burned by her own hunger. She shivered convulsively. "Dream on," she advised fiercely, but her voice shook in self-betrayal.

The noise of a car drawing up outside broke the taut silence.

Inuyasha inclined his arrogant dark head in a gesture of grim dismissal that made her squirm, and then he walked.

I KNOW I KNOW! I was awfully late with this update! But I have a couple of reasons for it… first of all, I found myself involve in a relationship that ended up pretty bad, must of all because he was dating me… and another 5 girls! ¬¬.. so I needed to get better emotionally, and what better than go to visit some friends in Europe? XD… but here I am again, I promise I will do more regular updates from now on… :D

Take care people!

XOXO Sahora


	6. Married to a Mistress 6

This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.

CHAPTER SIX

Kagome drifted like a sleepwalker through the following five days. The Ferrari was retrieved by a tow-truck and two men who laughed like drains throughout the operation.

She contacted a builder to have the roof inspected and the news was as bad as she had feared. The cottage needed to be re roofed, and the quote was way beyond her slender resources.

She dined out with Hinten Thunder. No woman had ever tried harder to be attracted to a man. He was good-looking and easy company. Desperate to feel a spark, she let him kiss her at the end of the evening, but it wasn't like falling on an electric fence, it was like putting on a pair of slippers. Seriously depressed, Kagome made an excuse when he asked when he could see her again.

She didn't sleep, couldn't sleep. She dreamt of fighting with Inuyasha. She dreamt of making wild, passionate love for the first time in her life. And, most grotesque of all, she dreamt of drifting down a church aisle towards a scowling, struggling Greek in handcuffs. She felt like an alien inside her own head and body.

She sat down and painstakingly made a list of every flaw that Inuyasha possessed. It covered two pages. In a rage with herself, she wept over that list. She loathed him. Yet that utterly mindless craving for his enlivening, domineering Neanderthal man presence persisted, killing her appetite and depriving her of all peace of mind.

How could she miss him, how could she possibly? How could simple sexual attraction be so devastating a leveler? she asked herself in furious despair and shame. And, since she could only be suffering from the fallout of having re-pressed her own physical needs for so long, why on earth hadn't she fancied Hiten?

At lunchtime on the fifth day, she heard a car-coming up the lane and went to the window. A silver Porsche pulled up. When Hyata Midoriko emerged, Kagome was startled. She had never in her life qualified for a personal visit from the owner of the Star modeling agency and couldn't begin to imagine what could've brought the spiky, city loving redhead all the way from town.

On the doorstep, Midoriko dealt her a wide, appreciative smile. "I've got to hand it to you, Kagome...you have to be the Comeback Queen of the Century."

"You've got some work for me?" Kagome ushered her visitor into the front room.

"Since the rumor mill got busy, you're really hot," Midoriko announced with satisfaction. "The day after tomorrow, there's a Di Venci fashion show being staged in London...a big splashy charity do, and your chance to finally make your debut on the couture circuit."

"The rumor mill?" Kagome was stunned by what the older woman was telling her. One minute she was yesterday's news and the next she was being offered the biggest break of her career to date? That didn't make sense.

Having sat down to open a tiny electronic notepad, Midoriko flashed her an amused glance. "The gossip columns are rumbling like mad...don't you read your own publicity?" Kagome stiffened. "I don't buy newspapers. I'm very discreet. Your private life is your own." However, Midoriko still searched Kagome's face with avid curiosity. "But what a coup for a lady down on her luck, scandalously maligned and dropped into social obscurity... Only one of the richest men in the world—"

Kagome jerked. "I don't know what you're talking about." Midoriko raised her penciled eyebrows. "I'm only talking about the guy who has just single-handedly re-launched your career without knowing it! The paparazzo who had his film exposed howled all over the tabloids about who he had seen you with—"

"You're talking about Inuyasha..."

"And when I received a cautious visit from a tight-mouthed gentleman I know to be close to the Greek tycoon himself, I was just totally amazed, not to mention impressed to death," Midoriko trilled, her excitement unconcealed. "So I handed over your address. They say Taisho Inuyasha never forgets a favor...or, for that matter, a slight."

Kagome had turned very pale. "I..."

"So why are you up here vegetating next door to a field of sheep?" Midoriko angled a questioning glance at her. "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen? Popular report has it that this very week he dumped Natalie Cibaud for you. Whatever you're doing would appear to be working well. And he's an awesome catch, twenty-two-carat gorgeous, and as for that delicious scary reputation of his—"

"There's nothing between Inuyasha and me," Kagome cut in with flat finality, but her head buzzed with the information that Inuyasha had evidently still been seeing the glamorous French film actress.

The silence that fell was sharp.

"If it's already over, keep it to yourself." Midoriko 's disappointment was blatant. "The sudden clamor for your services relates very much to him. The story that you've captured his interest is enough to raise you to celebrity status right now. So keep the people guessing for as long as you can..."

When Kagome recalled how appalled she had been at the threat of being captured in newsprint with Inuyasha and being subjected to more lurid publicity, she very nearly choked at that cynical advice. And when she considered how outraged Inuyasha must be at the existence of such rumors, when he had demanded her discretion, she sucked in a sustaining breath.

Midoriko checked her watch. "Look, why don't I give you a lift back to town? I suggest you stay with that friend in the suburbs again. The paparazzi are scouring the pavements for you. You don't want to be found yet. You need to make the biggest possible impact when you appear on that catwalk."

It took guts, but Kagome nodded agreement. The old story, she thought bitterly. She needed the money. Not just for the roof but also to pay off Inuyasha as well. Yet the prospect of all those flashing cameras and the vitriolic pens of the gossip columnists made her sensitive stomach churn. Money might not buy happiness, but the lack of it could destroy all freedom of choice. And Kagome acknowledged then that the precious freedom to choose her own way of life was what she now craved most.

Scanning Kagome 's strained face, Midoriko sighed. "Whatever has happened to the Ice Queen image?"

As she packed upstairs, Kagome knew the answer to that. Inuyasha had happened. He had chipped her out from behind the safety of her cool, unemotional facade by making her feel things she had never felt before...painful things, hurtful things. She wanted the ice back far more desperately than Midoriko did.

Kagome came off the catwalk to a rousing bout of thunderous applause. Immediately she abandoned the strutting insolent carriage which was playing merry hell with her backbone. Finished, at last. The relief was so huge, she trembled. Never in her life had she felt so exposed.

Before she could reach the changing room, Manny Di Venci, a big bruiser of a man with a shaven head and sharp eyes, came backstage to intercept her. "You were brilliant! Standing room only out there, but now it's time to beat a fast retreat. No, you don't need to get changed," the designer laughed, urging her at a fast pace down a dimly lit corridor that disorientated her even more after the glaring spotlights of the show. "You're the best PR my collection has ever had, and a special lunch-date demands a touch of Di Venci class."

Presumably Midoriko had set up lunch with some VIP she had to impress.

Thrust through a rear entrance onto a pavement drenched in sunlight, Kagome was dazzled again. Squinting at the open door of the waiting vehicle, she climbed in. The car had pulled back into the traffic before she registered that she was in a huge, opulent limo with shaded windows, but she relaxed when she saw the huge squashy bag of her possessions sitting on the floor. She checked the bag; her clothes were in it too. Somebody had been very efficient.

Off the catwalk, she was uncomfortable in the daring peacock-blue cocktail suit. She wore only skin below the fitted jacket with its plunging neckline, and the skirt was horrendously tight and short. She would have preferred not to meet a potential client in so revealing an outfit, but she might as well make the best of being sought after while it lasted because it wouldn't last long. The minute Inuyasha appeared in public with another woman, she would be as 'hot' as a cold potato. But oh, how infuriating it must be for Inuyasha to have played an accidental part in pushing her back into the limelight!

When the door of the limo swung open, Kagome stepped out into a cold, empty basement car park. She froze in astonishment, attacked by sudden mute terror, and then across the vast echoing space she recognized one of Inuyasha's security men, and was insensibly relieved for all of ten seconds. But the nightmare image of kidnapping which had briefly gripped her was immediately replaced by a sensation of almost suffocating panic.

"Where am I?" she demanded of the older man standing by a lift with the doors wide in readiness.

'Mr Taisho is waiting for you on the top floor, Miss Higurashi."

"I didn't realize that limo was his. I thought I was meeting up with my agent and a client for lunch...this is o-outrageous!" Hearing the positively pathetic shake of rampant nerves in her own voice, Kagome bit her lip and stalked into the lift. She was furious with herself. She had been the one to make assumptions. She should have spoken to the chauffeur before she got into the car.

Like a protective wall in front of her, the security man stayed by the doors, standing back again only after they had opened. Her face taut with temper, Kagome walked out into a big octagonal hall with a cool tiled floor. It was not Inuyasha 's apartment and she frowned, wondering where on earth she was. Behind her the lift whirred downward again and she stiffened, feeling ludicrously cut off from escape. Ahead of her, a door stood wide. She walked into a spacious, luxurious reception room. Strong sunlight was pouring through the windows. The far end of the room seemed to merge into a lush green bank of plants.

Patio doors gave way into what appeared to be a conservatory. Was that where Inuyasha was waiting for her?

Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. Utterly despising her own undeniable mix of apprehension and excitement. Kagome threw back her slim shoulders and stalked out Mo...fresh air. Too late did she appreciate that she was actually out on a roof garden. As she caught a dizzy glimpse of the horrific drop through a gap in the decorative stone screening to her right, her head reeled. Freezing to the spot, she uttered a sick moan of fear.

"Oh. hell...you're afraid of heights," a lazy drawl murmured. A pair of hands closed with firm reassurance round her whip-taut shoulders and eased her back from the parapet and the view that had made her stomach lurch to her soles. "I didn't think of that. Though I suppose I could keep you standing out here and persuade you to agree to just about anything. Sometimes it's such a challenge to be an honorable man."

Shielding her from the source of her mindless terror with his big powerful frame, Inuyasha propelled her back indoors at speed. Appalled by the attack of panic which had thrown her off balance, Kagome broke free of him then, on legs shaking like cotton wool pins, and bit out accusingly, "What would you know about honor?"

"The Greek male can be extremely sensitive on that subject. Think before you speak," Inuyasha murmured in chilling warning.

Kagome stared at him in surprise. Inuyasha stared levelly back at her, golden eyes terrifyingly cold.

And it tore her apart just at that moment to learn that she couldn't bear him to look at her like that. As if she was just anybody, as if she was nobody, as if he didn't care whether she lived or died.

"You get more nervy every time I see you"' Inuyasha remarked with cruel candor. "Paler, thinner too. I thought you were pretty tough, but you're not so tough under sustained pressure. Your stress level is beginning to show."

Color sprang into Kagome's cheeks, highlighting the feverish look in her gaze. "You're such a bastard sometimes," she breathed unevenly.

"And within itself, that's strange. I've never been like this with a woman before. There are times when I aim to hurt you and I shock myself," Inuyasha confided, without any perceptible remorse.

Yet he still looked so unbelievably good to her, and that terrified her. She couldn't drag her attention from that lean, strong face, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't forget what that silky black hair had felt like beneath her fingertips. She couldn't stop herself noticing that he was wearing what had inexplicably become the color she liked best on him. Silver-grey, the suit a spectacular fit for that magnificent physique. And how had she forgotten the way that vibrant aura of raw energy compelled and fascinated her? Cast into deeper shock by the raging torrent of her own frantic thoughts, Kagome felt an intense sense of her own vulnerability engulf her in an alarming wave.

"Relax...I've got a decent proposal to put on the table before lunch," Inuyasha purred, strolling soundlessly forwards to curve a confident arm round her rigid spine and guide her across the hall into a dining-room. "Trust me...I think you'll feel like you've won the National Lottery."

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" Kagome whispered, taking in the table exquisitely set for two, the waiting trolley that indicated they were not to be disturbed.

"Because you don't want me to. Even the way you just looked at me..." Inuyasha vented a soft husky laugh of very masculine appreciation. "You really can't look at me like that and expect me to throw in the towel."

"How did I look?"

"Probably much the same way that I look at you," he conceded, uncorking a bottle of champagne with a loud pop and allowing the golden liquid to foam expertly down into two fluted glasses. "With hunger and hostility and resentment. I am about to wipe out the last two for ever."

Inuyasha slotted the moisture-beaded glass between her taut fingers. Absorbing her incomprehension, he dealt her a slashing smile. "The rumour that Taisho Inuyasha cannot compromise is a complete falsehood. I excel at seeing both points of view and a period of reflection soon clarified the entire problem. The solution is very simple."

Kagome frowned uneasily. "I don't know what you're driving at..."

"What is marriage? Solely a legal agreement." Inuyasha shrugged with careless elegance but she was chilled by that definition. "Once I recognized that basic truth, I saw with clarity. I'll make a deal with you now that suits us both. You sign a prenuptial contract and I will marry you..."

"S-say that again," Kagome stammered, convinced she was hallucinating.

Inuyasha rested satisfied eyes on her stunned expression. "The one drawback will be that you won't get the public kudos of being my wife. We will live apart much of the I'm in London and I want you here, you will stay in this apartment. I own this entire building. You can have it all to yourself, complete with a full complement of staff and security. The only place we will share the same roof will be on my island in Greece. How am I doing?"

Kagome's hand was shaking so badly, champagne was slopping onto the thick, ankle-deep carpet. Was he actually asking her to marry him? Had she got that right or imagined it? And, if she was correct and hadn't misunderstood, why was he talking about them living apart? And what had that bit been concerning 'public kudos'? Her brain was in a hopelessly confused state of freefall.

Inuyasha took her glass away and set it aside with his own. He pressed her gently down onto the sofa behind her and crouched down at her level to scan her bewildered face.

"If a marriage license is what it takes to make you feel secure and bring you to my bed, it would be petty to deny you," Inuyasha informed her smoothly. "But, since our relationship will obviously not last for ever, it will be a private arrangement between you and I alone."

Kagome stopped breathing and simply closed her eyes. He had hurt her before but never as badly as this. Was her reputation really that bad? In his eyes, it evidently was, she registered sickly. He didn't want to be seen with her. He didn't want to be linked with her. He would go through the motions of marrying her only so long as it was a 'private arrangement'. And a temporary one.

Cool, strong hands snapped round her straining fingers as she began to move them in an effort to jump upright. "No...think about it, don't fly off the handle," Inuyasha warned steadily. "It's a fair, realistic, what-you-see-is-what-you-get offer—"

"A mockery!" Kagome contradicted fiercely. And that had to be the most awful moment imaginable to realize that she was very probably in love with Inuyasha. It was without doubt her lowest hour. Devastated to suspect just how and why he had come to possess this power to tear her to emotional shreds, Kagome was shorn of her usual fire.

"Be reasonable. How do I bring Toutosai's former mistress into my family and demand that they accept her as my wife?" Inuyasha enquired with the disorientating cool of someone saying the most reasonable, rational things and 'expecting a fair and understanding hearing'. "Some things one just does not do. How can I expect my family to respect me if I do something I would kill any one of them fordoing? The family looks to me to set an example."

Kagome still hadn't opened her eyes, but she knew at that instant how a woman went off the rails and killed. There was so much pain inside her and so much rage—at her, at him— she didn't honestly know how she could contain it. A mistress within a marriage that nobody would ever know about, because she was too scandalous and shameful woman to deserve or indeed expect acceptance within the lofty Taisho clan...that was what he was offering. "I feel sick..." Kagome muttered raggedly. "No, you do not feel sick," Inuyasha informed her with resolute emphasis.

"I... feel... sick!"

"The cloakroom is across the hall." Inuyasha withdrew his strong hands from hers in a stark demonstration of disapproval. Only when he did so did she realize how tightly she had been holding onto him for support. The inconsistency of such behavior in the midst of so devastating a dialogue appalled her. "I didn't expect you to be so difficult about this. I can appreciate that you're a little disappointed with the boundaries I'm setting, but when all is said and done. It is still a marriage proposal!"

"Is it?" Kagome queried involuntarily, and then, not trusting herself to say anything more, she finally, mercifully made it into the sanctuary of the cloakroom. She locked the door and lurched in front of a giant minor that reflected a frightening stranger with the shocked staling eyes of tragedy, pallid cheeks and a horribly wobbly mouth. You do not love that swine—do you hear me? She mouthed with menace at the alien weak creature in the reflection, The only thing you're in love with is his body! She knew as much about love as a fourteen-year-old with a crush! And she could not imagine where that insane impulsive idea that she might love such a unreconstructed pig could've come from...it could only have been a reaction to overwhelming shock.

She wanted to scream and cry and break things and she knew she couldn't, so she hugged herself tight instead and paced the floor. As there was a great deal of floor available, in spite of the fact it was only a cloakroom, but that was not a problem. He's prepared to give you a whole blasted building to yourself. But then he does like his own space. He's prepared to do virtually anything to get you into bed except own up to you in public. Love and hate. Two sides of the same coin. A cliché but the brief, terrifying spasm of that anguished love feeling had now been wholly obliterated by loathing and a desire to hit back and hurt that was ferocious. A marriage proposal? A bitter laugh erupted from Kagome. Inuyasha was still planning to use her, still viewing her as a live toy to be acquired at any cost for his bedroom. And evidently her reluctance had sent what he was prepared to pay for that pleasure right through the roof! Grimacing, she could not help thinking about the two men before Inuyasha who had most influenced her life. Her father and Toutosai. For once she thought about her father without sentimentality...

Russ had gambled away her earnings and finally abandoned her, leaving her to work off his debts. Toutosai had stolen three years of her life and destroyed her reputation. How often had she sworn since never to allow any man to use her for his own ends again? Like a bolt from the blue an infinitely more ego-boosting scenario flashed into Kagome's mind. She froze as the heady concept of turning the tables occurred to her. What if she were to do the using this time around?

Didn't she require a husband to inherit a share of her godmother's estate? When she had heard that news, she had taken disappointment on the chin. She had not foreseen the remotest possibility of a husband on the horizon, and the concept of looking for one with the sole object of collecting that inheritance had made her cringe. Only no longer did Kagome feel so nice in her notions. Inuyasha had done that to her. He was a corrupting influence and no mistake. He had distressed her, humiliated her, harassed her, not to mention committed the ultimate sin of taking the holy bond of matrimony and twisting it into a sad, dirty joke.

Inuyasha saw her as an ambitious, money-grabbing bimbo without morals. No doubt he despised what he saw. He probably even despised his own obsessive hunger to possess her. The marriage, if it could be called such, wouldn't last five minutes beyond the onset of his boredom.

But what if she were to take the opportunity to turn apparent humiliation into triumph? She could break free of everything that had ruined her life in recent years. That debt to Inuyasha, a career and a life she hated, Inuyasha himself. If she had the courage of her convictions, she could have it all. Yes, she really could. She could marry him and walk out on him six months later. She pictured herself breezily throwing Inuyasha a cheque and telling him no, she didn't need his money, she now had her own. She looked back in the mirror and saw a killer bimbo with a brain and not a hint of tears in her eyes any more.

Kagome was surprised to find Inuyasha waiting in the hall when she emerged.

"Are you OK?" he enquired, as if he really cared.

Her lip wanted to curl but she controlled it. The rat. An extraordinarily handsome rat, but a rat all the same.

"I was working out my conditions of acceptance." Kagome flashed him a bright smile of challenge. Inuyasha tensed.

"I'll need to be sure I will feel like a Lottery winner at the end of this private arrangement," she told him for good measure.

Inuyasha frowned darkly. "My lawyer will deal with such things. Do you have to be so crude?"

Crude? My goodness, hadn't he got sensitive all of a sudden? He didn't want to be forced to dwell on the actual cost of acquiring her. And even if she didn't go for the whole package, and indeed considered herself insulted beyond belief, it was quite a hefty cost on his terms, Kagome conceded grudgingly. A marriage license as the ultimate assurance of financial security—the lifestyle of a very wealthy woman and no doubt a very generous final settlement at the end of the day.

Mulling over those points, Kagome decided that he certainly couldn't accuse her of coming cheap, but she was entranced to realize that Inuyasha had no desire to be reminded of that unlovely fact. Just like everybody else, it seemed, Taisho Inuyasha preferred to believe that he was wanted for himself. She stored up that unexpected Achilles' heel for future reference.

Kagome widened her beautiful eyes at his words. "I thought you admired the upfront approach?"

"I brought you here to celebrate a sane and sensible agreement, not to stage another argument."

With that declaration, heated golden eyes watched her flick her spectacular mane of ebony hair over her slim shoulders and stayed to linger on her exquisite face. As his intent appraisal slowly arrowed down over the deep shadowy vee of her neckline, Kagome stiffened. At an almost pained pace of ever-deepening lust, his appreciative gaze wandered on down to take in the full effect of her slim hips and incredibly long legs. "No, definitely not to have another argument," Inuyasha repeated rather hoarsely.

"If your idea of celebration encompasses what I think it might, I'm afraid no can do." Kagome swept up her glass of champagne with an apologetic smile pasted on her lips and drank deep before continuing at a fast rate of knots, "I'll share your bed on our wedding night, but not one single second, minute, hour or day before. I suggest that we have lunch —"

"Lunch?" Inuyasha repeated flatly. "We might as well do lunch because we are not about to do anything else," Kagome informed him dulcetly.

"Theos...come here," Inuyasha groaned. He hauled her resisting frozen length into his arms.

"Why are you always so set on punishing me?" He gave her a frustrated little shake, golden eyes blazing over her mutinous expression. "Why do you always feel the need to top everything I do and turn every encounter into a fight? That is not a womanly trait. Why cannot you just one time give me the response I expect?"

"I suppose I do it because I don't like you," Kagome admitted, with the kind of impulsive sincerity that was indisputably convincing.

In an abrupt movement, Inuyasha's powerful arms dropped from her again. He actually looked shocked. "What do you mean you don't like me?" he grated incredulously. "What sort of a thing is that to say to man who has just asked you to marry him?"

"I wrote two whole pages on the subject last week...all the things I don't like...but why should you let that bother you? You're not interested in what goes on inside my head...all you require is an available body!"

"You're overwrought, so I won't make an issue of that judgment." Inuyasha frowned down into her beautiful face with the suggestion of grim self-restraint. "Let's have lunch."

As she sat down at the table Kagome murmured sweetly. "One more little question. Are you planning to generously share yourself between Natalie Cibaud and me?"

Inuyasha glared at her for a startled second. "Are you out of your mind?"

"That's not an answer—"

Inuyasha flung aside his napkin, golden eyes glittering hard and bright as diamonds. "Of course I do not intend to conduct a liaison with another woman while I am with you." He intoned in a charged undertone.

Relaxing infinitesimally, Kagome said flatly, "So when will the big event be taking place?"

"The wedding? As soon as possible. It will be very private."

"I think it is so sweet that you had not a single doubt that I would say yes." Kagome stabbed an orange segment with vicious force.

"If you want me to take you to bed to close that waspish mouth, you're going the right way."

Looking up, Kagome clashed with gleaming golden eyes full of warning. She swallowed convulsively and colored, annoyed that she was unable to control her own fierce need to attack him.

"You told me yourself that the one offer you would settle for is marriage. I have delivered...stop using me as target practice."

Kagome tried to eat then, but she couldn't. All appetite had ebbed, so she tried to make conversation, but it seemed rather too late for that. Inuyasha now exuded brooding dissatisfaction. She saw that she had already sinned. He had expected to pour a couple of glasses of champagne down her throat and sweep her triumphantly off to bed. She felt numb, for once wonderfully untouched by Inuyasha 's incredibly powerful sexual presence.

"Are you aware that all those rumors about you and I have actually re-launched my career?" she murmured stiffly.

"Today was your swansong. I don't want you prancing down a catwalk half-naked and I don't want you working either," Inuyasha framed succinctly.

"Oh," Kagome almost whispered, because it took so much effort not to scream.

"Be sensible...naturally I want you to be available when I'm free."

"Like a harem slave—"

" Kagome..." Inuyasha growled.

"Look, I've got a ripping headache," Kagome confessed abruptly and, pushing her plate away, stood up. "I want to go home."

"This will be your home in London soon,"he reminded her drily.

"I don't like weird pictures and cold tiled floors and dirty great empty rooms with ugly geometric furniture...I don't want to live in a building with about ten empty floors below me!" Kagome flung, her voice rising shrilly.

"You're just overexcited—"

"Like one of your racehorses?"

With a ground-out curse, Inuyasha slung his napkin on the table and, thrusting his chair back, sprang to his full commanding height. As he reached for her she tried to evade him, but he simply bent and swept her up into his powerful arms and held her tight.

"Kagome...why are you suddenly behaving like a sulky child?"

"How dare—?"

In answer, Inuyasha plunged his mouth passionately hard down on hers and smashed his primal passage through every barrier. Her numbness vanished. He kissed her breathless until she was weak and trembling with tormented need in his arms. Then he looked down at her, and he stared for a very long while.

The silence unnerved her, but she was too shaken by the discovery that even a few kisses could reduce her to wanton compliance to speak.

His bronzed face utterly hard and impassive, he finally murmured flatly, "I'll call the car for you and I'll be in touch. I don't feel like lunch now either."

Kagome registered his distance. The sense of rejection she felt appalled her. And she thought then. If I go through with this private arrangement, if I try to play him at his own game, I will surely tear myself apart...

No—no, she wouldn't, she told herself urgently, battening down the hatches before insidious doubt could weaken her determination. One way or another she would survive with her pride intact. Wanting Inuyasha was solely a physical failing. Ultimately she would overcome that hunger and look forward to the life she would have after him.


	7. Married to a Mistress 7

This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"So, EVEN though it was a rather unconventional proposal, Inuyasha did have marriage in mind," Sango finally sighed with satisfaction.

"Only when he saw it was his only hope."

"I hear a lot of men are like that. Inuyasha is only thirty-three, but he's bound to be rather spoilt when it comes to his...well, when many other women would be willing to sleep with him without commitment," Sango extended with warming cheeks. "I expect you've been something of a learning experience for him, and if you were more sensible, he could learn a lot more."

"Meaning?"

'This marriage will be what you make of it."

"Haven't you been listening to what I've been saying?" Kagome muttered in confusion. "It isn't going to be a proper marriage, Sango."

"Right now you are very angry with Inuyasha. I refuse to credit that you could really go through with walking out on your marriage in six months' time," Sango told her with a reproving shake of her head.

"I will, Sango...believe me, I will—"

'This time I'm definitely not listening," Sango asserted wryly. "And as for Inuyasha 's apparent fantasy that he can marry you and live with you on an occasional basis without people finding out that he's involved with you...he's almost as off the wall on this as you are, Kagome!"

"No, he knows exactly what he's doing. He just doesn't expect me to be in his life for very long." Sango compressed her lips. "I have only one real question to ask you. Why can't you just sit down and tell Inuyasha the whole truth about Toutosai?"

Taken aback, Kagome protested, "He didn't want to listen when I did try—"

"You could've made him listen. You are no shrinking violet."

"Do you seriously think that Inuyasha is likely to believe that Toutosai took advantage of me in every way but the one in which, of course, everyone thinks he did, even though he didn't?" Kagome was shaken into surprised defensiveness by Sango's attitude.

"Well, your silence on the subject has defined your whole relationship with Inuyasha.

Indeed, I have a very strong suspicion that you don't really want him to know the real

story."

"And why on earth would I feel like that?"

"I think that you think you're a much more exciting proposition as a bad girl," Sango admitted reluctantly, and Kagome turned scarlet. "You get all dolled up in your fancy clothes and you flounce about getting a bitter thrill out of people thinking you're a real hard, grasping little witch—"

Kagome was aghast. "Sango, that's—"

"Let me finish," the older woman insisted ruefully. "I believe that that's the way you've learnt to cope with those who have hurt you, not to mention all the mud you've had slung at you. You hide away inside that fancy shell and sometimes you get completely carried away with pretending to be what you're not...so ask yourself—is it any wonder that Inuyasha doesn't know you the way he should? He's never seen the real you."

The real me, Kagome reflected, cringing where she sat. He would be bored stiff by the real Higurashi Kagome, who, horror of horrors, couldn't even read or write properly. And was it really likely that a male as sexually experienced as Inuyasha would be equally obsessed with possessing a woman who turned out to be just one big pathetic bluff? A woman who had never yet shared a bed with any man? A virgin?

Unaware of the younger woman's hot-cheeked distraction, Sango was made anxious by the lingering silence. "You're the closest thing to a daughter I'll ever have," she sighed. "I just want you to be happy...and I'm afraid that if you keep up this front with Inuyasha, you'll only end up getting very badly hurt."

Her eyes prickling, Kagome gave her friend a hug. She blamed herself for being too frank and worrying Sango. From here on in, she decided shamefacedly, she would keep her thoughts and her plans to herself.

Inuyasha phoned her at six that evening. He talked with the cool detachment of someone handing out instructions to an employee. She knew herself unforgiven. His London lawyer would visit her with the prenuptial contract. The ceremony would take place the following week in the north of England.

"Next week?" Kagome exclaimed helplessly.

"Tin organizing a special licence."

"Why do we have to go north?"

"We couldn't marry in London without attracting attention."

Kagome bit her lower lip painfully. So, Sango innocently assumed that such secrecy couldn't be achieved? She didn't know Inuyasha. Employing his wealth in tandem with his naturally devious mind, Inuyasha clearly intended to take every possible precaution.

"Do we travel up together in heavy disguise?"

"We'll travel separately. I'll meet you up there."

"Oh..." Even facetious comments were squashed by such attention to detail. "I'm afraid that I won't be seeing you beforehand—"

"Why not?" Kagome heard herself demand in disbelief, and then was furious with herself for making such an un-cool response.

"Naturally I intend to take some time off. But in order to free that space in a very tight schedule, I'll be flying to Japan later this evening and moving on to Indonesia for the rest of the week."

"You'll be seriously jet lagged by the time you get back."

"I'll survive. I suggest you disengage yourself from your contract with the modeling

Agency—"

"I was on the brink of signing a new one," Kagome admitted.

"Excellent. Then you can simply tell them that you have changed your mind." Kagome was still recovering from Midoriko's angry incredulity at their brief and unpleasant interview when she was subjected to the visit from Inuyasha's lawyer.

At her request the older man read out the document she was expected to sign. If Kagome had been as avaricious as Inuyasha apparently believed, she would've been ecstatic. In return for her discretion she was offered a vast monthly allowance on top of an all expenses- paid lifestyle, and when the marriage ended she was to receive a quite breathtaking settlement.

By the time he had finished speaking, Kagome's nails were digging into her palms like pincers and she was extremely pale. She signed, but the only thing that gave her the strength to do so was the bitter certainty that in six months- time she would tear up her copy of that agreement and throw the pieces scornfully back at Inuyasha's feet. Only then would he appreciate that she could neither be bought nor paid off.

The church sat on the edge of a sleepy Yorkshire hamlet. Mid-morning on a weekday, the village had little traffic and even fewer people. Kagome checked her watch for the tenth time. Inuyasha was now eleven minutes late.

Having run out of casual conversation, the elderly rector and his wife were now uneasily anchored in the far corner of the church porch while Kagome hovered by the door like a pantomime bride, on the watch in terror that the groom had changed his mind. And it was possible, wasn't it? The arrangements had been so detached they now seemed almost surreal.

A car had picked her up at a very early hour to ferry her north. And Inuyasha had phoned only twice over the past week. He would have been better not phoning at all. Her spontaneity vanish the instant she recognized her own instinctive physical response to that rich, dark drawl. It had not made for easy dialogue.

Today, I am getting married. This is my wedding day, she told herself afresh in a daze of disbelief, and of course he would turn up, but he would get a tongue-lashing when he did. Inuyasha... Hatred was so incredibly enervating, Kagome conceded grimly. He kept her awake at night and he haunted her dreams. That infuriated and threatened her.

In defiance of the suspicion that she was taking part in some illegal covert operation, she was wearing her scarlet dress. A scarlet dress for a scarlet woman. No doubt that would strike Inuyasha as an extremely appropriate choice. Hearing the sound of an approaching car, Kagome tensed. A gleaming Mercedes closely followed by a second car pulled up. Inuyasha emerged from the Mercedes. Sheathed in a wonderfully well-cut navy suit, pale blue tie and white silk shirt, he looked stupendous. As his London lawyer appeared from the second car, Inuyasha paused to wait for him. As if he had all the time in the world, Kagome noted incredulously. Her ready temper sizzled. How dared Inuyasha keep her waiting and then refuse to hurry himself? Stepping into full view, her attention all for Inuyasha as he mounted the shallow steps to the door, Kagome snapped, And what sort of a time do you call this?

"Where the heck have you been?"

As his lawyer froze into shattered stillness, Inuyasha's golden eyes lit on Kagome like burnished blazing gold. And then a funny thing happened. A sudden scorching smile of raw amusement wiped the disturbing detachment from his savagely handsome features.

"We had to wait thirty minutes for a landing slot at the airport. Short of a parachute jump, there wasn't much I could do about that."

Suddenly self-conscious, her cheeks flaming, Kagome shrugged. "OK."

"Thanks for wearing my favorite outfit. You look spectacular,' Inuyasha murmured huskily in her ear, before he moved smoothly forward to offer his apologies to the rector for his late arrival.

Minutes later, they were walking down the aisle. As the ceremony began Kagome looked tautly around herself and then down at her empty hands. Not even a flower to hold. And her dress—so inappropriate, so strident against the timeworn simplicity of the church and its quiet atmosphere of loving piety. But then what did love have to do with her agreement with Inuyasha?

Suddenly she felt the most terrible fraud. Like any other woman, she had had wedding day dreams. Not one of them had included marrying a man who didn't love her. Not one of them had included the absence of her father and of even a single friend or well-wisher.

Her eyes prickled with tears. Finding herself all choked up, Kagome blinked rapidly, mortified by her own emotionalism. A ring was slid onto her wedding finger. And then it was over. When Inuyasha tried to kiss her, she twisted her ebony head away and presented him with a cool, damp cheek.

"What's the matter with you?" Inuyasha demanded as he strode down the steps, one big hand stubbornly enclosing hers in spite of her evasive attempts to ease free of him. "Why the tears?"

"I feel horribly guilty...we just took vows we didn't mean."

Kagome climbed into the Mercedes. After a brief exchange with his lawyer, Inuyasha swung into the driver's seat and slammed the door. Starting the engine, he drove off. The silence between them screeched louder with every passing minute.

'Tell me, is there the slightest hope of any bridal joy on the horizon?" Inuyasha finally enquired in a charged and sardonic undertone.

"I don't feel like a bride," Kagome responded flatly. "I thought you'd be pleased about that." Inuyasha brought the Mercedes to a sudden halt on the quiet country road. As he snapped free his seat belt Kagome turned to look at him, wondering why he had stopped. With a lack of cool that took her completely by surprise, Inuyasha pulled her into his powerful arms and sealed his mouth to hers in a hot, hard, punishing kiss. Kagome struck his broad muscular back with balled fists of outrage, but all that pent-up passion he unleashed surged through her like a lightning bolt of retribution.

Her head swam; her heartbeat thundered insanely fast. Her fists uncoiled, her fingers flexed and then rose to knot round the back of his strong neck. She clung. He prized her lips apart and with a ragged groan of need let his tongue delve deep. Excited beyond belief at that intensely sexual assault, Kagome reacted with a whimpering, startled moan of pleasure, and then as abruptly as he had reached for her Inuyasha released her again, his hard profile taut.

"We haven't got time for this. I don't want to have to hang around at the airport." Kagome's swollen mouth tingled. She lowered her head, but as Inuyasha shifted restlessly on the seat and switched the engine back on she could not help but notice that he was sexually aroused. Her face burning from that intimate awareness, she swiftly averted her attention again. He seemed to get that way very easily, she thought nervously. And only then did Kagome admit to herself that her own lack of sexual experience had now become a source of some anxiety to her.

For a cool, sophisticated male, Inuyasha had seemed alarmingly close to the edge of his control. If he could react like that to one kiss, what would he be like tonight?

That Greek temperament of his was fiery. Virile, overwhelming masculinity powered his smoldering passion to possess, which she had already frustrated more than once. And, since he believed that she had had other lovers, maybe he wouldn't bother too much with preliminaries. Maybe he would just expect her to be as hot and impatient as he was for satisfaction...

For goodness' sake, Inuyasha wasn't a clumsy teenager, she told herself in exasperation. As experienced as he undoubtedly was in the bedroom, he was sure to be a skilled and considerate lover. And he would never guess that she was inexperienced. She had once read on a problem page that most men couldn't even tell whether a woman was a virgin or not.

Honestly, she was being ridiculous! Embarrassed for herself, Kagome stared stonily out at the passing scenery and forced her mind blank. She smothered a yawn. As the ferocious tension drained gradually out of her muscles, tiredness began to creep in to take its place.

Inuyasha helped her out of the car at the airport. He frowned down at her pale, stiff face.

"Are you OK?"

"I'm just a bit tired."

They were flying straight to Greece and they were able to board his private jet immediately. He tucked her into a comfortable seat and, after takeoff, a meal was served. Kagome had about two mouthfuls and a glass of wine. In the middle of the conversation Inuyasha was endeavoring to open, she noticed that she still had the wedding ring on her finger.

He is my husband, Kagome suddenly registered in shock. And then, just as suddenly, she erased that thought. She didn't want to think of him as her husband because she was all too well aware that he did not think of her as his wife. A private arrangement, a temporary one, not a normal marriage, she reminded herself. Her troubled eyes hardened. Sliding the slender band from her finger, she studied it with a slightly curled lip before leaning forward to set it down on the table between them.

"You'd better take that back," she told him carelessly. Inuyasha stared at her as if she had slapped him. A faint arc of color scored his high cheekbones. His fulminating gaze raked over her. "You are a ravishingly beautiful woman...but sometimes you drive me clean up the wall!" he admitted grittily. "Why should you remove that ring now, when we are alone?"

"Because I don't feel comfortable with it." To evade that hard, assessing scrutiny, Kagome rested her head back and closed her eyes. He was acting as if she had mortally insulted him. But she had no intention of sporting a ring that she would eventually have to take off. On that awareness, she fell asleep.

Inuyasha shook her awake just after the jet had landed at Athens.

"You've been tremendous company," he drawled flatly. Kagome flushed. "I'm sorry, I was just so tired I crashed."

"Surprisingly enough, I did get that message." They transferred from the jet onto a helicopter for the final leg of their journey to the island. As the unwieldy craft rose into the air and then banked into a turn, providing Kagome with a frighteningly skewed panoramic view of the city far below, her stomach twisted sickly.

She focused on the back of the pilot's seat, determined not to betray her fear to Inuyasha. A long, timeless period of mute suffering followed.

"We're almost there. I want you to see the island as we come in over the bay," Inuyasha imparted. His warm breath fanned her cheekbone as the helicopter gave an alarming lurch downward and she flinched. "Go on...look." Inuyasha strove to encourage her while she shut her eyes tight and her lips moved as she prayed.

"I totally forgot you were afraid of heights," he murmured ruefully as he lifted her down onto solid ground again and steadied her with both hands, "I always come to Chymos in the helicopter. You'll have to get used to it some time."

All Kagome could think about was how soon she would have to undergo that ordeal again.

"What you need is more of the same," Inuyasha announced in a tone of immoveable conviction. "I have a pilot's licence. I'll take you up in the helicopter every day for longer and longer periods and you'll soon get over your phobia."

Welded to the spot by such a threat, Kagome gave him an aghast look. "Is it your mission in life to torture me?"

Inuyasha dealt her a smoldering appraisal, his hard, sensual mouth curving in consideration while his golden eyes glittered over her with what could only be described as all-male anticipation. "Only with pleasure, in my bed, pethi mou."


	8. Married to a Mistress 8

This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Warm color fingered into Kagome's pale cheeks.

Thirty yards from them a long, low white villa sprawled in isolated splendor across the promontory. It overlooked a pale sandy beach, and the rugged cliffs and dark blue sea supplied a majestic backdrop for Inuyasha's island home.

"I was born on Chymos. As a child I spent all my vacations here. Although I was an only child, I was never lonely because I had so many cousins. Both my parents came from large families. Since my father died, this island has become my retreat from the rest of the world." Dropping an indolent and assured arm round her stationary figure, Inuyasha guided her towards the villa. "You're honored. I have never brought a woman here before, pethi mou."

As they entered the charming hall she saw into the spacious lounge opposite. In one glance she took in the walls covered with pictures, the photographs scattered around, the shelves of books and the comfortable sofas and rugs. It was full of all the character of a family home. "It's not like your apartment at all!" Kagome surprise was unconcealed.

"One of my cousins designed my London apartment. I did tell her what I wanted but it didn't quite turn out the way I had imagined it would." Inuyasha closed his arms round her from behind. "We're alone here. I gave the staff some time off."

Kagome tensed. He pressed his wickedly expert mouth to the smooth skin just below her ear. Every treacherous pulse jumped in response. Kagome quivered, knees wobbling. With an early chuckle of amusement, Inuyasha scooped her off her feet as if she weighed no more than a doll and strode out of the hall down a long tiled corridor.

It was the end of the line of restraint and Kagome knew it. She parted her dry lips nervously. "Inuyasha?" she muttered urgently. "I know you think I've slept with—"

"I do not want to hear about the other men who have preceded me," Inuyasha interrupted with ruthless precision, glowering down at her in reproof. "Why do women rush to make intimate revelations and then lie like mad about the number of lovers they've had? Why can't you just keep quiet?"

Not unnaturally silenced by that unexpected attack, Kagome chewed her lower lip uncertainly as he settled her down on the thick carpet in a beautifully furnished bedroom. Her entire attention immediately lodged on the bed.

Seemingly unable to tolerate an instant of physical separation, Inuyasha encircled her with his arms again and loosed a husky sigh of slumberous pleasure above her head. Curving her quiescent length into glancing contact with his hard, muscular physique, Inuyasha tugged down the zip on her dress. As cooler air hit her taut shoulder-blades, followed by the sensual heat of Inuyasha's exploring mouth, Kagome braced herself and surged back into speech.

"Actually," she confided in an uneven rush, "all I wanted to say is that I'm really not that experienced!"

"Theos..." Inuyasha ground out, abruptly dropping his arms from her and jerking away to stride across the room. Peeling off his jacket and pitching it aside under her bemused gaze, he sent her a look as dark and threatening as black ice under spinning wheels.

"Sorry, what—?" Kagome began.

"Why are you- doing this to me?" Inuyasha demanded rawly as he wrenched at his tie with an exasperated hand. "Why tell me these foolish lies? Do you think I need to hear them? Do you honestly believe that I could credit such a plea from you for one second?"

Marooned in the centre of the carpet, her dress lurching awkwardly off one bare and extremely taut shoulder, Kagome let her gaze fall from his in a mixture of fierce embarrassment and resentment. If that was his response to the mere admission that she was not a bedroom sophisticate likely to wow him with the unexpected, or possibly even with moves he did expect, she could only cringe from the possibility of what an announcement of complete inexperience would arouse. And she did not want to go to bed with an angry man.

"No doubt next you will be offending me beyond belief by referring to the man who kept you for three years...don't do it," Inuyasha told her in emphatic warning, "I do not wish to hear one more word about your past. I accept you as you are. I have no choice but to do otherwise."

Kagome tried to shrug her dress back up her arm.

"And why are you standing there like a child put in the corner? Are you trying to make me feel bad?"

Hot color burnished her cheeks. "You're in a very volatile mood—"

"Put it down to frustration...you've done nothing but freeze me out since I married you this morning," Inuyasha drawled with raw impatience.

"And you have done nothing but think about sex."

Having made that counter-accusation, Kagome collided with scorching golden eyes of outrage and tilted her chin. Like a child in a corner, was she? How dare he? Her bright eyes blazed. The silence thundered. She shrugged her slim shoulders forward and extended her slender arms.

Inuyasha tensed, eyes narrowing. The scarlet dress shimmied down to Kagome 's feet, unveiling her lithe, perfect figure clad in a pair of minuscule white panties and a no more substantial gossamer-fine bra. Inuyasha looked as if he had stopped breathing.

Stepping out of the dress, she slung him a catwalk model's look of immense boredom and, strolling over to the bed, kicked off her shoes and folded herself down on it.

"What are you waiting for? A white flag of surrender?" Kagome enquired dryly, pride vindicated by the effect she had achieved.

"Something rather less choreographed, a little warmer and more enthusiastic," Inuyasha purred with sudden dangerous cool, strolling over to the side of the bed to stare down at her with slumberous eyes of alarming shrewdness. I'm developing a strong suspicion that to date your bedroom forays have been one big yawn; because you really don't understand how I feel, do you?"

Face pink, and uneasy now, Kagome levered herself up on one elbow. "What are you trying to imply?"

"You're about to find out." His bold golden eyes flamed with amusement as he began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Is that a threat?" Kagome said breathlessly.

"Is that fear or hope I hear?" With a soft, unbearably sexy laugh, Inuyasha dispensed with his shirt and gazed down mockingly into very wide blue eyes. "Your face...the expression is priceless!"

Kagome veiled her scrutiny, her fair complexion reddening.

Inuyasha strolled across the room, indolent now that he had her exactly where he wanted her, fully in control. "As for me thinking about sex all the time...don't you know men? I've been celibate for many weeks. I've wanted you for an incredibly long time. I'm not used to waiting and fighting every step of the way for what I want. When you have everything, what you cannot have naturally assumes huge importance—"

"And when you finally get it, I suppose it means next to nothing?" Kagome slotted in tightly. Inuyasha elevated a slanting ebony brow. "Lighten up," he advised, not even pretending not to comprehend her meaning. "Only time will decide that. I live in the present and so should you, pethi mou."

He undressed with fluid ease. She watched him. Ever since that night at the cottage, his powerful image had been stamped into her brain like a Technicolor movie still. But she was still hopelessly enthralled, shaken by the extent to which she responded to his intensely physical allure. Yet she had never seen beauty in the male body until he came along. But from his wide brown shoulders, slim hips and long, powerful hair-roughened thighs, Inuyasha made her mouth run dry, her pulses race and her palms perspire.

"You've been so quiet since that ceremony...and now you recline like a very beautiful stone statue on my bed." Inuyasha skimmed off his black briefs in one long, lazy movement. "If it wasn't so ridiculous, I would think you were scared of me."

Kagome managed to laugh but her throat was already constricting with nerves. He was so relaxed about his nudity, quite unconcerned that he was hugely aroused. And while common sense was telling her that of course God had fashioned men and women to fit, Kagome just could not begin to imagine how at that moment.

Inuyasha came down on the wide bed beside her. He scanned the sudden defensive upward tilt of her perfect profile, trailed a slow and appreciative hand through the lush tumble of ebony strands of hair cascading off the pillows. He threw himself back and closed his hands round her slender forearms to bring her gently down to him. "And now my reward for waiting," he breathed with indolent satisfaction. "Nothing can disturb or part us here."

Kagome gazed down into smoldering golden eyes full of expectancy. "Inuyasha..."

He reached up to run the tip of his tongue erotically along the tremulous line of her generous mouth. "You feel like ice. I'll melt you," he promised huskily, deft fingers already engaged in releasing the catch on her bra.

Kagome trembled, feeling her whole body filled with delicious tension. She closed her eyes. He kissed her. And every time he kissed her it got just that little bit more tormenting, and she would open her lips wider, needing more pressure, more passion, begging for it as the feeling of unstoppable hunger began to build and race through her veins.

He rolled her over and closed a hand over the pouting swell of one pale breast. Her taut body jumped as he smiled brilliantly down into her shaken eyes. "And yet you are so red-hot, responsive when I touch you. Every time that gives me a high," Inuyasha confessed thickly. "I love seeing you out of control."

Threatened by that admission, Kagome shifted uneasily. "I don't like that—"

"You'll have to learn to like it." Inuyasha bent his dark, arrogant head over a pink straining nipple and laved that achingly tender tip with his tongue, engulfing her in sensation that she now struggled instinctively to resist.

"No..." she gasped.

"Don't fight what I can make you feel..." he urged hoarsely, employing expert fingers on her sensitive flesh, making her squirm in breathless, whimpering excitement.

Her body wasn't her own any more, but by then she didn't want it to be. With every atom of her being she craved those caresses. Wild sensation was addictive. She was hooked between one second and the next, her mind wiped clean of all thought. The hot wire of his seduction pulled tight as heat flared between her shifting thighs. She moaned his name low in her throat.

He took her mouth with a hot, sexual dominance then. He sealed her to the abrasively masculine angles of his hard, hungry body. She panted for breath when he released her swollen lips, sensually bemused eyes focusing on the brooding intensity of that darkly handsome face now curiously stilled above hers.

" Inuyasha...?" she mumbled, her fingers rising without her volition to trace the unremittingly harsh compression of his mouth.

He jerked back his head, so that she couldn't touch him. In pained bewilderment Kagome lowered her hand again and stared up at him.

"You used to watch me all the time," he breathed grimly. "But the instant I turned in your direction, you looked away...except that once, seven months ago. Then I knew you were mine, as much mine as if I had a brand on you!"

Stricken by that assurance slung at her out of the blue, Kagome twisted her head away, feeling naked, exposed. Even then Inuyasha had been able to see inside her, see below the surface which had dazzled other men. And, worst of all, he had immediately recognized the hunger she had refused to recognize within herself.

"So I waited for you to make your move," Inuyasha admitted in a tone of growing condemnation. "I waited and I waited for you to dump him. But you still stayed with him! I began to wonder if you had a single living brain cell inside that gorgeous head!"

He was talking about Toutosai. Shocked rigid by what he was telling her. Kagome muttered, "But I...I didn't—"

Inuyasha vented a harsh, cynical laugh. "Oh, I know why you stayed with him now! You owed him too much money to walk out. Did you think I hadn't worked that out yet? But that's when you reduced yourself to the level of a marketable commodity, and when I think about that it makes me want to smash things! Because, having learnt that wonderful lesson with him, you then sold yourself to me for an even higher price."

"How can you—?"

"What else is this marriage but the price I had to pay for you?"

"You...swine," Kagome whispered brokenly, white as death as the contempt he had concealed from her sank into her sensitive flesh like poison.

"And I'll get you out of my system soon if it kills me," Inuyasha swore with ragged force as he gazed broodingly down at her.

"Start by letting me out of this bed," she demanded unevenly.

"No way...I paid with a wedding ring and millions of pounds for this pleasure."

"No!"

"But you're no good at saying no to me," Inuyasha murmured with roughened menace against her tremulous lips. "Sexually you are one very weak reed where I'm concerned. It's my one and only consolation while I'm making a bloody fool of myself over a woman like you!"

"How dare you?" Kagome gulped.

But Inuyasha skimmed an assured hand down the taut length of one quivering thigh and kissed her with fierce, angry hunger. And it was like instantaneous combustion. She went up in flames. He didn't hold her down. He didn't pin her to the mattress. He kissed her into submission, tormented her with every erotic trick in his extensive repertoire and the most overpowering physical passion. He swept away her defenses with terrifying ease.

Stroking apart her slender thighs, Inuyasha traced the swollen, moist sensitivity at the very heart of her with knowing fingers. With a strangled moan, Kagome clutched at him in desperation. He controlled her with the hunger she could not deny and made her ache for him. That ache for satisfaction tortured her. He groaned something in Greek, pushing her tumbled hair back off her brow with an unsteady hand, circling her mouth caressingly with his one more time.

As Inuyasha shifted over her she couldn't get him there fast enough. Her own urgency was as screamingly intense as his. And then she felt him, hot and hard and gloriously male, seeking entrance, and she shivered convulsively, on a high of such anticipation and excitement she was mindless.

So when he thrust hungrily into her willing body she was quite unprepared for the jagged pain of that forceful intrusion. Pain ripped apart the fog of sensual sensation and made her jerk and cry out in shock as she instinctively strove to push him away from her. But Inuyasha had already stilled to frown down at her with stunned, disbelieving golden eyes.

"Kagome —?"

"What are you looking at?" Kagome whispered in stricken embarrassment, utterly appalled and outraged that her own body could have betrayed her to such an extent.

With a sudden shift of his hips, Inuyasha withdrew from her again. But he kept on staring down at her in the most mortifying way, his bewilderment blatant. A damp sheen accentuated the tautness of the bronzed skin stretched over his hard cheekbones and the pallor spreading beneath. 'Cristo...a virgin...' he breathed, not quite levelly.

Kagome lay there, feeling horribly rejected and inadequate and wishing she could vanish.

"And I really hurt you," Inuyasha groaned even more raggedly, abruptly levering his weight from her, golden eyes holding hers with the same transfixed incredulity with which he might have regarded the sudden descent of an alien spaceship in his bedroom.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" In one driven movement Kagome rolled off the bed and direct in the direction of the bathroom. Dear heaven, he had been so repulsed he had just abandoned their lovemaking. "Kagome?" Inuyasha murmured grimly. "I think this is something we definitely need to talk about—"

Kagome slammed the bathroom door so loudly it rocked on its hinges and then she pressed the lock double-quick. Bang went the image of the cool sophisticate! And without that glossy image she felt naked and exposed. The last thing she could've faced right then was awkward questions. And as she turned on the bath taps she recalled his swinging verbal attack on her before they made love and she burst into gulping tears.

Inuyasha banged on the door. "Kagome? Come out of there!"

"Go to hell!" she shouted, cramming her hand to her wobbling mouth before a sob could escape and betray her.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm having a bath, Inuyasha... not drowning myself! Although with that technique of yours, I understand your concern!"

But no sooner had Kagome hurled those nasty words than she was thoroughly ashamed of herself. He hadn't meant to hurt her, he hadn't known, and lashing out in retaliation because she felt horribly humiliated was unjust and mean. Silence fell. Slowly, miserably, Kagome climbed into the bath.

Only then did it occur to her that it was foolish to be distressed by what Inuyasha had said in temper earlier. After all, he had now discovered that she could not possibly have been Toutosai's mistress. So that had to make a difference to the light in which he saw her, surely! Only what she had been given with one hand had seemingly been taken with the other. Inuyasha had been repulsed by her inexperience.

Devastated by that awareness, Kagome thought back seven months to that single exchanged glance with Inuyasha across that long table in the Taisho boardroom, that charged clash of mutual awareness which seemed to have changed her entire life. Inuyasha had actually been waiting for her to ditch Toutosai on his behalf and he had been furious when she hadn't.

Furthermore, Inuyasha could not now bring himself to speak Shio Toutosai's name out loud. In fact he had said she would offend him beyond belief with any reference to Toutosai before they'd even got into bed. Yet Inuyasha had been in no way that sensitive to that former relationship when he'd first come to announce his intentions at Sango's house...

Men were strange, Kagome decided limply, and none more strange than Inuyasha.

It took her a long time to emerge from the bathroom, but when she did, wrapped in an over-large short silk robe she had found, the bedroom was empty. It was something of an anticlimax. Kagome got back into bed, not remotely sleepy and very tense, while she waited and waited for Inuyasha to reappear. A postmortem to end all postmortems now threatened. Having emerged from shock, Inuyasha would take refuge in anger, she forecast glumly. He would demand to know why she hadn't told him the truth about Toutosai. He would utterly dismiss any claim that he would never have believed her.

She lay back, steeling herself for recriminations as only Inuyasha could hurl them. Like deadly weapons which struck a bull's-eye every time. He never missed. And she hadn't been fair to him; she knew now that she hadn't been fair. Sango had been right. She had reaped a twisted kind of relish out of pretending to be something she wasn't while she goaded Inuyasha on and taunted him. And so why had she reacted to him in a way she had never reacted to any other man? Kagome discovered that she was miserable enough without forcing herself to answer that question.

The door opened. She braced herself. Inuyasha stood poised in the doorway. Barefoot, black hair tousled, strong jawline already darkening with stubble, he looked distinctly unfamiliar in a pair of black tight-fitting jeans, with a black shirt hanging loose and unbuttoned on his bare brown hair-roughened chest.

"I now know everything..." he announced in the most peculiar slurred drawl. "But I am too bloody drunk to fly!"

Kagome sat up. Eyes huge, she watched Inuyasha collide with the door and glower at it as if it had no business being there in his path. He was drunk all right. And he just looked so helpless to Kagome at that moment that she abandoned her stony, defensive aspect. Concern for him took over instead.

Leaping out of bed and crossing the room, she put her hand on his arm. "Come and lie down," she urged.

"Not on that bed." As he swayed Inuyasha surveyed the divan with an extraordinary force of antagonism. "Right at this moment I want to burn it."

Assuming that her vindictive comment on his technique had struck home with greater force and efficacy than she could ever have imagined, Kagome paled with guilt but continued to try and ease him in the same direction. Was that why he had gone off to hit the bottle? Some intrinsically male sense of sexual failure because he had inadvertently hurt her? Kagome endeavored to drag him across the carpet. He was obstinate as ever.

"Lie down!" she finally launched at him in full-throttle frustration.

And Inuyasha did lie down. Kagome couldn't believe it but he sprawled down on the bed as if she had a gun trained on him. And he looked so utterly miserable. It was true, she decided in fascination, women were definitely the stronger sex. Here was the evidence.

Disaster had befallen Inuyasha when he had least expected it in a field he prided himself on excelling in and he couldn't handle it.

Crawling onto the bed beside him, Kagome gazed down at him until her eyes misted over.

She was shattered to discover that all she wanted to do was cocoon him in lashings of TLC.

"You were really great until the last moment," she told him in tender consolation. "I didn't mean what I said. You mustn't blame yourself—"

"I blame Toutosai," Inuyasha gritted.

In complete confusion, Kagome frowned. "You blame... you blame Toutosai?" she stressed, all at seas as to his meaning.

Inuyasha growled something in Greek that broke from him with the aggressive force of a hurricane warning. "English, Inuyasha..."

"He's a slime-bag!"

Focusing on her properly for the first time, Inuyasha dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a great wodge of crumpled fax paper.

Kagome took it from him and spread the paper out. It was so long it kept on spreading, across his chest and finally right off the edge of the bed. She squinted down and recognized her own signature right at the very foot. In such dim light, it left her little the wiser as to its content, and in his presence she didn't want to be seen peering to comprehend all that tiny type.

"Toutosai took advantage of your stupidity—"

"Excuse me?" Kagome cut in, wide-eyed.

"Only a financially very naive person would've signed that loan contract," Inuyasha extended, after a long pause during which he had visibly struggled to come up with that more diplomatic term. "And a moneylender from a back-street would've offered more generous terms than that evil old bastard!"

Clarity shone at last for Kagome. Inuyasha had somehow obtained a copy of the loan agreement she had signed three years earlier. That was what was on the fax paper. "Where did you get this from?"

"I got it," Inuyasha responded flatly.

"Why did you say I was stupid...? Because I'm not"

"You'd still have been paying that loan off ten years from now." He got technical then, muttering grimly about criminal rates of interest and penalty clauses. She couldn't bring herself to tell him that she had become trapped in such an agreement because she had been too proud to ask someone else to read the small print out and explain the conditions.

"You were only nineteen," Inuyasha grated finally. "You signed that the day before you moved in with Toutosai. He blackmailed you—"

"No...I agreed. There was never any question of us sharing a bedroom or anything like that. All he ever asked for was the right to show me off. I was just an ego-trip for him but I didn't know what I was getting into until it was too late to back out," Kagome muttered tightly, squashing the fax paper into a big crunched-up ball again and throwing ii away.

"And Leland was getting his own back on an unfaithful wife," Inuyasha completed grimly.

Unsurprised that he should have known about Shio Kaede's affair, Kagome breathed in deep and decided to match his frankness. "My father is a compulsive gambler, Inuyasha.

He got into trouble with some very tough men and he couldn't pay up what he owed them. It was nothing to do with Toutosai but I went to him for advice, and that's when he told me he'd loan me the money if I moved in with him."

"Lamb to the slaughter," Inuyasha groaned, as if he was in agony. "Compulsive gambler?' he queried in sudden be-amusement.

"Dad would sell this bed out from under you if he got the chance."

"Where have you kept this charming character concealed?"

"I don't know where he is right now. We haven't been close...well, not since I took on that loan to settle his debts. Naturally Dad feels bad about that."

"The debt was his?" Inuyasha bit out wrathfully as that fact finally sunk in. "Your precious father stood back and watched you move in with Toutosai just so that he could have his gambling debts paid?"

"It was life or death, Inuyasha...it really was," Kagome protested. "He'd already been badly beaten up and he was terrified they would kill him the next time around. Toutosai gave me that money when nobody else would have. It saved Dad's life."

"Dad doesn't sound like he was worth saving—"

"Don't you dare say that about my father!" Kagome censured chokily. "He brought me up all on his own!"

"Taught you how to go to the pawnshop? Flogged anything he could get his hands on? Your childhood must've been a real bliss fest, I don't think!"

"He did his best. That's all anyone can do," Kagome whispered tautly. "Not everyone is born with your advantages in life. You're rich and selfish. Dad's poor and selfish, but, unfortunately for him, he has too much imagination."

"So have I...oh, so have I. I imagined you," Inuyasha confided, his deep dark drawl slurring with intense bitterness. "The only quality I imagined right was that you do need me. But all the rest was my fantasy. Tonight... deservedly...it exploded right in my face."

Kagome slumped as if he had beaten the stuffing out of her. She wanted to tell him that she didn't need him but her throat was so clogged up with tears she couldn't trust herself to speak. A fantasy? He had imagined her? That was even worse than being a one-dimensional trophy, she realized in horror. At the end of the day, when fantasy met reality and went bang, there was just nothing left, was there?

"I don't want to sober up," Inuyasha admitted morosely. "The more I find out about you, the worse I feel. I don't like regret or guilt. Some people love to immolate themselves in their mistakes. I don't. How could I have been so bloody stupid?"

"Sex." Kagome supplied, even more morosely. Inuyasha shuddered. It was a very informative reaction. "Was it that bad?" she couldn't help asking. "Worse." Inuyasha stressed feelingly. "I felt like a rapist."

"Silly ...just bad luck...life kicking you in the teeth...you get used to it after a while...least, I do," Kagome mumbled, on the brink of tears again.

"You should be furious with me—"

"No point...you're drunk. I like you better drunk than I like you sober," she confided helplessly. "You're more human."

"Christos...when you go for the deathblow, you don't miss, do you?" Unhealthily pale beneath his bronzed skin, Inuyasha let his tousled head fall heavily back on the pillows.

His lashes swept down on his shadowed golden eyes. "So now I know where I stand with you...basement footing—possibly even right down level with the earth's core," he muttered incomprehensibly.

"Go to sleep," Kagome urged.

"When one is that far down, one can only go up," Inuyasha asserted with dogged resolution.

Well, at least he wasn't talking about flying again. With a helicopter parked thirty yards away that had been a genuine cause for concern. She ought to hate him. She knew she ought to hate him for breaking her heart with such agonizing honesty. But the trouble was, she loved him in spite of that two-page list of flaws. She didn't know why she loved him. She just did. And she was in really deep too. He had just rejected her in every possible way and all she wanted to do was cover him up and hug him to death. Flaked out, silenced and vulnerable, Inuyasha had huge appeal for Kagome.

Why had she spent so long telling herself that she hated this guy? She had been cleverer than she knew, she conceded. Loving him hurt like hell. She felt as if she had lost an entire layer of skin and every inch of her was now tender and wounded. There she had been, naively imagining that he might have been upset because his sexual performance had not resulted in her impressed-to-death ecstasy. And all the time he had been ahead of her, whole streets ahead of her...

The minute he had found out that he was her first lover, he had fairly leapt into seeking out what her relationship with Toutosai had been based on, since it had self-evidently no been based on sex. Naturally he had immediately thought of that loan and probed deeper.

And now he knew the whole sorry story and her name had been cleared. But much good

it seemed to have done her...

Sango had said Kagome enjoyed pretending to be what she had called a 'bad girl'. Kagome suppressed a humorless laugh. Poor Sango had never allowed for the painful possibility that Inuyasha, who had exceedingly poor taste in women, was more excited by bad girls than he was by virgins.

OK! here I am again.. I really sorry about the last chapter I upload.. I have no idea what happened… but here it is again, and for the delay.. 2 MORE CHAPTERS! I hope you enjoyed them, I will be posting another one soon… this is only beginning.

Take care!


	9. Married to a Mistress 9

_**This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.**_

CHAPTER NINE

Kagome wakened the next morning in the warm cocoon of Inuyasha's arms. It felt like heaven.

Some time during the night he had taken off his shirt. She opened her lips languorously against a bare brown shoulder and let the tip of her tongue gently run over smooth skin.

He tasted wonderful. She breathed in the achingly familiar scent of him with heady pleasure. Hot husky male with a slight flavor of soap. She blushed for herself, but the deep, even rise and fall of his broad chest below her encircling arm soothed her sudden tension. He was still out for the count.

And she would probably never lie like this with Inuyasha again. He was only here now because he had fallen asleep She had plummeted from the heights of obsessive desirability like a stone. She had lost him but then she had never really had him. He had craved the fantasy, the Ice Queen, not the ordinary woman, and when in so many ways she had played up to that fantasy of his, how could she really blame him for not wanting her any more?

Easing back her arm, she let her palm rest down on that hair-roughened expanse of chest which drew her attention like a magnet. Her fingertips trailed gently through the tight muscles , delicately traced a flat male nipple, slid downward over the rippling muscular smoothness of his abdomen, discovering a fascinating little furrow of silky hair that ran...and then she tensed in panic as she recognized the alteration in his breathing pattern. She was waking him up!

And just at that moment Kagome didn't feel strong enough to face Inuyasha waking up, sober and restored to intimidating normality. Inuyasha would bounce back from last night's shock and humility like a rubber ball aiming for the moon. Lying absolutely still, she waited until his breathing had evened out again and then, sidling out from under his arm, she slid off the bed.

Gathering up her discarded garments, she crept out into the corridor. Through the open doorway of the bedroom opposite she could see her single suitcase sitting at the foot of the bed. And that sight just underlined Kagome's opinion of her exact marital status. She had no status whatsoever. Her possessions belonged in a guest-room because she was supposed to be a casual visitor, not a wife.

Pulling out a white shift dress, fresh lingerie and straps sandals, Kagome got dressed at speed. It was only seven but the heat was already building. The house was silent. Finding her way into a vast, gleaming kitchen, she helped herself to a glass of pure orange juice and swiped a couple of apples from a lush display of fruit. Determined not to face Inuyasha until she had sorted herself out, she left the house. Traversing the beautiful gardens, she wandered along the rough path above the beach.

Then she let her thoughts loose, and she winced and she squirmed and she hurt. Their wedding night had been a disaster. And how much of that final confessional dialogue would Inuyasha recall when he woke up? Would he remember the stupid, soppy way she had hung over him? Would he recognize the pain she had not been able to conceal for what it was? The mere idea that Inuyasha might guess that she was in love with him was like the threat of death by a thousand cuts for Kagome.

Last night, for the very first time, Inuyasha hadn't treated her as an equal. Kagome shrank from that lowering awareness. Funny how she hadn't really noticed or even appreciated that Inuyasha had always met her on a level playing tied until he suddenly changed tack. Now everything was different. She had been stripped of her tough cookie glossy image and exposed as a pathetic fraud. A virgin rather than a sultry, seductive object of must-have desire. A blackmail victim rather than a calculating gold-digger and the former mistress of an older man.

And who would ever have guessed that Taisho Inuyasha had a conscience? But, amazingly, he did. Inuyasha had been appalled by what he'd discovered. Even worse, he had pitied her for her less than perfect childhood and her gullible acceptance of that hateful loan agreement. Pitied. That acknowledgement was coals of fire on Kagome's head.

Inuyasha now regretted their strange marriage but he felt guilty. Kagome didn't want his guilt or his pity, and suddenly she saw how she could eradicate both. It would be so simple. All she had to do was tell Inuyasha about the conditions of Takeda Kagura's last will and testament. When Inuyasha realized that she had had an ulterior motive in marrying him, he would soon stop feeling sorry for her...at least she would retain her ride that way.

As Kagome rounded a big outcrop of rock, she saw two little boys trying to help a fisherman spread a net on the beach below. As she watched, unseen, their earnest but clumsy efforts brought a warm, generous smile to her lovely face.

"You have never once shown me that ravishing smile." Kagome was startled into a gasp by the intervention of that soft, rich, dark drawl, and her ebony head spun.

Inuyasha stood several feet away. Clad in elegant chinos and a white polo shirt, he stole the very breath from Kagome's lungs. Her heart crashed violently against her breastbone.

He looked drop-dead gorgeous. But her wide eyes instantly veiled. She knew how clever he was. She was terrified he would somehow divine her feelings for him.

"But then possibly I have done nothing to inspire such a reward," Inuyasha completed tautly.

He stared at her, golden eyes glittering and fiercely intent. In the brilliant sunlight, with her air shimmering like a veil of ebony and the simple white dress a perfect foil for her lithe figure, she was dazzling. Moving forward slowly, as if he was attuned to her pronounced tension, he closed a lean hand over one of hers and began to walk her back along the foreshore.

"From today, from this moment, everything will be different between us," Inuyasha swore with emphasis.

"Will it be?" Briefly, involuntarily, Kagome stole a glance at him, nervous as a cat on hot bricks.

"You should have told me the truth about Toutosai the very first day—"

"You wouldn't have believed me..."

His long brown fingers tightened hard on hers. He looked out to sea, strong profile rigid. He released his breath in a sudden driven hiss. "You're right. I wouldn't have. Nothing short of the physical proof you gave me last night would've convinced me that you weren't the woman I thought you were."

"At least you're honest," Kagome muttered tautly.

Apparently enthralled by the view of the single clique anchored out in the bay, Inuyasha continued to stare out over the bright blue water. "Considering that there were so many things that didn't add up about you, I can't say that I can pride myself on my unprejudiced outlook...or my judgment. You asked me to stay away from you and I wouldn't. You even left London..."

He was talking as if someone had a knife bared at his throat. Voice low, abrupt, rough, every word clenched with tension and reluctance.

"I have never treated a woman as badly as I have treated you... and in the manner of our marriage I really did surpass myself, pethi mou."

He sounded like a stranger to Kagome. Inuyasha having a guilt trip. She trailed her fingers free of his, cruel pain slashing at her. It was over. She didn't need to hear these things when she had already lived them, and most of all she did not want him feeling sorry for her. In fact that humiliation stung like acid on her skin.

"Look, I have something to tell you." Kagome cut in stiffly.

"Let me speak...do you think this is easy for me?" Inuyasha slung at her in a gritty undertone of accusation. "Baring my feelings like this?"

"You don't have any feelings for me," Kagome retorted flatly, her heart sinking inside her, her stomach lurching.

"You seem very sure of that—"

"Get real, Inuyasha. There are rocks on this beach with more tender emotions than you've got!" Having made that cynical assurance, Kagome walked on doggedly. "And why should you feel bad for trying to use me when I was planning to use you too? It's not like I'm madly in love with you or anything like that!" She paused to stress that point and vented a shrill laugh for good measure, "I only married you because it suited me to marry you. I needed a husband for six months..."

Against the soft, rushing backdrop of the tide, the silence behind her spread and spread until it seemed to echo in her straining ears.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Inuyasha finally shattered the seething tension with that harsh demand.

Kagome spun round, facial muscles tight with self-control. "My godmother's will. She was a wealthy woman but I can't inherit my share of her estate without a marriage license. All I wanted was access to my own money, not yours."

Inuyasha stood there as if he had been cast in granite, golden eyes fixed to her with stunning intensity. "This is a joke... right?"

Kagome shook her ebony head in urgent negative. She was so tense she couldn't get breath enough to speak. Inuyasha was rigid with incredulity and in the stark, drenching sunlight reflecting off the water he seemed extraordinarily pale.

"You do realize that if what you have just told me is true, I am going to want to kill you?" Inuyasha confided, snatching in a jagged breath of restraint.

"I don't see why," Kagome returned with determined casualness. "This marriage wasn't any more real to you than it was to me. It was the only way you could get me into bed."

His hard dark features clenched as if she had struck him but she forced herself onward to the finish. "And you didn't expect us to last five minutes beyond the onset of your own boredom. So that's why I decided I might as well be frank."

Turning on her heel, trembling from the effect of that confrontation, Kagome walked blindly off the path and up through the gardens of the house. He wasn't going to be feeling all sorry and superior now, was he? The biter bit, she thought without any satisfaction as she crossed the hall. Now they would split up and she would never see him again...and she would spend the rest of her life being poor and wanting a man she couldn't have and shouldn't even want.

" Kagome...?"

She turned, not having realized in her preoccupation that Inuyasha was so close behind her. The world tilted as he swept her off her startled feet up into his powerful arms. A look of aggressive resolution in his blazing golden eyes, Inuyasha murmured grittily, "It should've occurred to you that I might not be bored yet, pethi mou"

"But—"

The kiss that silenced her lasted all the way down to the bedroom. It was like plunging a finger into an electric socket. Excitement and shock waved through her. He brought her on the bed. Surfacing, Kagome stammered in complete bewilderment, "B-but you don't want me any more...you imagined me—"

Engaged in ripping off his clothes over her, Inuyasha glowered down at her. "I didn't imagine that clever little brain or that stinging tongue of yours, did I?"

"What are you doing?" she gasped.

"What I should have done when I woke up this morning to find you exploring me like a shy little kid...I didn't want to embarrass you." Inuyasha focused on her. This sheer incredulity at that decision etched in every line of his savagely attractive features.

"How could I possibly have dreamt that you could be embarrassed? Beneath that angelic, perfect face you're as tough as Teflon!"

Kagome was flattered to be called that tough. She didn't mind being told she was clever, or hat she had a sharp tongue either. This was respect she was getting. It might not be touched in terms most women would've recognized but she knew Inuyasha well enough to see that she had risen considerably in his estimation since the previous night. Indeed, it crossed her mind that Inuyasha responded beautifully to a challenge, and that acknowledgement shone a blinding white light of clarity through her thoughts. She sat here transfixed.

"Why are you so quiet?" Inuyasha enquired suspiciously. "I don't trust you quiet."

Kagome cast him an unwittingly languorous smile over one shoulder. "I presume we're not heading for a divorce right at this moment...?"

"Theos, woman...we only got married yesterday!"

The heat of his hungry gaze sent wild color flying into her cheeks. He still wanted her.

He still seemed to want her every bit as much as he had ever wanted her, she registered in renewed shock. And then he brought his mouth to hers again and her own hunger betrayed her. Her hands flew up to smooth through his hair, curve over his hard jaw line.

The need to touch, to hold was so powerful it made her eyes sting and filled her with instinctive fear.

"I won't hurt you this time...I promise," Inuyasha groaned against her reddened mouth while he eased her out of her dress virtually without her noticing. He cupped her cheekbones to stare down into her sensually bemused eyes, his own gaze a tigerish, slumberous gold. "To be the first with you...that was an unexpected gift. And telling me crazy stories in an effort to level some imaginary score is pointless. You ache for me too...do you think I don't see that in you with every look, every touch?"

Crazy stories? The will, her godmother's will. Obviously, after a moment of reflection, he hadn't believed her after all. But Kagome couldn't keep that awareness in mind. She did part her lips, meaning to contradict him, but he kissed her again and she clutched at him in the blindness of a passion she could not deny.

"Why should you still fight me?" Inuyasha purred as he treed her breasts from the restraint of her bra and paused to run wondering dark eyes over her. He brushed appreciative fingers over the engorged tip of one pale breast and then lingered there in a caress that stole the very breath from her immediate responsive body. "Why should you even want to fight me?"

There was something Kagome remembered that she needed to tell him, but looking up into those stunning golden eyes she could barely recall what her own name was, never mind open a serious conversation. Inuyasha angled a blinding megawatt smile of approval down at her and it was as if she had been programmed from birth to seek that endorsement.

She reached up and found his lips again, a connection she now instinctively craved more than she had ever craved anything in her life before.

His tongue played with hers as he lay half over her. He smoothed a hand down over her slim hips and eased off the scrap of lace that still shielded her from him. With skilled fingers he skimmed through the ebony curls at the apex of her slender thighs and sought the hot, moist centre of her. A whimper of formless sound was torn from Kagome then.

Suddenly she was burning all over and she couldn't stay still.

And, as straying shards of sunlight played over the bed, Inuyasha utilized every ounce of his expertise to fire her to the heights of anguished desire. When she couldn't bear it any more, he slid over her. He watched her with hungry intimacy as he entered her, the fierce restraint he exercised over his own urgency etched in every taut line of his dark, damp features.

The pleasure came to her then, in wave after drugging wave. In the grip of it, she was utterly lost. "Inuyasha..." she cried out.

And he stilled, and Kagome gasped in stricken protest, and with an earthy sound of amusement he went on. She didn't want him ever to stop. The slow, tormenting climb to fevered excitement had raised her to such a pitch, she ached for more with every thrust of his possession. And when finally sensation took her in a wild storm of rocketing pleasure, she uttered a startled moan of delight. As the last tiny quiver of glorious fulfillment evaporated she looked up at him with new eyes.

"Wow," she breathed.

Struggling to catch his breath, Inuyasha dealt her a very male smile of satisfaction. "That was the wedding night we should have had."

Kagome was still pretty much lost in wonder. Wow, she thought again, luxuriating in the strong arms still wrapped around her, the closeness, the feeling of tenderness eating her up alive and threatening to make her eyes overflow. Oh, yes, wouldn't tears really impress him? Blinking rapidly, she swallowed hard on the surge of powerful emotion she was struggling to control.

"I think it's time I made some sort of announcement about this marriage of ours," Inuyasha drawled lazily.

Kagome's lashes shot up, eyes stunned at all that went unsaid in that almost careless declaration. Evidently Inuyasha no longer saw the slightest need to keep their true relationship a secret from the rest of the world.

"Don't you think?" he prompted softly, and then with a slumberous sigh he released her from his weight and rolled off the bed in one powerfully energetic movement. "Shower and then breakfast...I don't think I've ever been so hungry in my life!"

Only then did Kagome recall what he had said about 'crazy stories' before they'd made love.

Her face tensed, her stomach twisting. "Inuyasha...?"

He turned his tousled dark head and he smiled at her again.

Her fingers knotted nervously into a section of sheet. "What I mentioned earlier...what I said about my godmother's will...that wasn't a story, it was the truth."

Inuyasha stilled, his smile evaporating like Scotch mist, golden eyes suddenly level and alert.

Kagome explained again about the will. She went into great detail on the subject of her godmother's lifelong belief in the importance of marriage, the older woman's angry disapproval when Kagome had moved in with Toutosai. But Kagome didn't look at Inuyasha again after that first ten seconds when she had anxiously registered the grim tautening of his dark features.

"You see, at the time...after the way you proposed...I mean, I was angry, and I didn't see why I shouldn't make use of the fact that you were actually offering me exactly what I required to meet that condition of inheritance..." Kagome's voice petered out to a weak, uncertain halt because what had once seemed so clear now seemed so confused inside her own head. And the decision which once had seemed so simple and so clever mysteriously took on another aspect altogether when she attempted to explain it out loud to Inuyasha.

The silence simmered like a boiling cauldron.

Slowly, hesitantly, Kagome lifted her head and focused on Inuyasha.

Strong face hard with derision, golden eyes scorching slivers of burning gold, he stared back at her. "You are one devious, calculating little vixen," he breathed with raw anger.

"When I asked you to marry me, I was honest. Anything less than complete honesty would've been beneath me because, unlike you, I have certain principles, certain standards!"

Kagome had turned paper-pale. "Inuyasha, I—"

"Shut up...I don't want to hear any more!" he blazed back at her with sizzling contempt. "I'm thinking of the generous financial settlement you were promised should our marriage end. You had neither need nor any other excuse to plot and plan to collect on some trusting old lady's will as well!"

A great rush of hot tears hit the back of Kagome's aching eyes. Blinking rapidly, she looked away. He was looking at her as if she had just crawled out from under a stone and sudden intense shame engulfed her.

"How could you be so disgustingly greedy?" Inuyasha launched in fierce condemnation.

"And how could you try to use me when I never once tried to use you?"

"It wasn't like that. You've got it all wrong," Kagome fumbled in desperation, deeply regretting her own foolish mode of confession on the beach when saving face had been uppermost in her mind. "It was a spur-of-the-moment idea...I was hurt and furious and I —"

"When a man gives you a wedding ring, he is honoring you, not using you!" Inuyasha gritted between clenched teeth.

Kagome started to bristle then. "Well, I wouldn't know about that...I only had the supreme honor of wearing that ring for about five minutes—"

"You gave it back—"

Kagome lifted shimmering blue eyes and tilted her chin.

"You took it!" she reminded him wrathfully. "And I don't want it back either...and I don't want you making any announcement to anybody about our marriage...because I wouldn't want anybody to know I was stupid enough to marry you!"

"That cuts both ways," Inuyasha asserted with chilling bite, temper leashed back as he squared his big shoulders. "And I'll be sure to ditch you before the six months is up!"

He strode into the bathroom.

Kagome flung herself back against the pillows, rolled over and pummeled them with sheer rage and frustration. Then she went suddenly still, and a great rolling breaker of sobs threatened because just for a little while she had felt close to Inuyasha and then, like a fairy-tale illusion, that closeness had vanished again...driven away by her own foolish,

reckless tongue.

Yes, sooner or later she would naturally have had to tell Inuyasha about Takeda Kagura's will. But on the beach she had blown it, once and for all. After all, who was it who had told him that she had planned to use him? And the whole thing had struck him as so farfetched that within minutes of being told he had decided it wasn't true. Indeed he had assumed that she was childishly trying to 'level the score." Kagome shivered, belatedly appalled by the realization that Inuyasha could understand her to that degree...

That was exactly what she had been doing. Believing that their relationship was over, she had been set on saving face and so she had told him about the will in the most offensive possible terms. Now that she had convinced him that she was telling him the truth, she was reaping the reward she had invited...anger, contempt, distaste. And how could she say now, 'I wanted to marry you anyway and I needed a good excuse to allow myself to do I'll and still feel that I was control?' There was no way that she could tell Inuyasha that she loved him.

When he came out of the bathroom, a towel knotted round his lean brown hips, Kagome studied him miserably. "Inuyasha, I was going to tear up that prenuptial contract—"

"You should be writing scripts for Disney!" Inuyasha countered with cutting disbelief, and strode towards the dressing-room.

"You said...you said you couldn't pride yourself on your judgment where I was concerned," Kagome persisted tightly, wondering if what she was doing qualified as crawling, terrified that it might be.

"I'm back on track now, believe me." Inuyasha sent her an icy look of brooding darkness. "I'm also off to London for a couple of days. I have some business to take care of." Business? What business? They had only arrived yesterday. Kagome wasn't stupid. She got the message. He just didn't want to be with her any more.

"Are you always this unforgiving in personal relationships?" Kagome breathed a little shakily when he had disappeared from view, but she knew he could still hear her.

"I love that breathy little catch in your voice but it's wasted on me. You wouldn't cry if I roasted you over a bonfire!"

"You're right," Kagome said steadily, hastily wiping the tears dripping down her cheeks with the corner of the sheet.

Inuyasha reappeared, sheathed in a stupendous silver-grey suit. Lean, dark face impassive, he looked as remote as the Himalayas and even colder.

Kagome made one final desperate attempt to penetrate that armor of judgmental ice. "I really don't and never did want your money, Inuyasha," she whispered with all the sincerity she could muster.

Inuyasha sent her a hard, gleaming scrutiny, his expressive mouth curling. "You may not be my conception of a wife but you will make the perfect mistress. In that role you can be every bit as mercenary as you like. You spend my money; I enjoy your perfect body. Greek billionaires understand that sort of realistic exchange best of all. And at least this way we both know where we stand." Kagome gazed back at him in total shock.

Every scrap of color drained from her cheeks. But in that moment the battle lines were drawn...if Inuyasha wanted a mistress rather than a wife, a mistress, Kagome decided fierily, was what he was jolly well going to get!

"Inuyasha doesn't know where you are? You mean he's not aware that you're back in London yet?" Sango breathed in astonishment when the fact penetrated.

Kagome took a deep breath. "I came straight here from the airport. I'm planning to surprise him," she said, with more truth than the older woman could ever have guessed.

"Oh...yes, of course." Sango relaxed again and smiled. "What a shame business concerns had to interrupt your honeymoon! It must've been something terribly important. When was it you said Inuyasha left the island?"

"Just a few days ago..." Kagome did not confide that she had left on the ferry exactly twenty four hours later—the very morning, in fact, when her credit cards had been delivered.

Credit cards tellingly made out in her maiden name. The die had been cast there and then. Inuyasha's goose had been cooked to a cinder.

And, faced with that obvious invitation to spend, spend, spend, as any sensible mistress would at the slightest excuse, Kagome had instantly risen to the challenge. She had flown to Rome and then to Paris. She had had a whale of a time. She had repaired the deficiencies of her wardrobe with the most beautiful designer garments she could find. And if she had seen a pair of shoes or a handbag she liked, she had bought them in every possible color...

Indeed, she could now have papered entire walls with credit card slips. If Inuyasha had been following that impressive paper trail of gross extravagance and shameless avarice across Rome and Paris, he would probably still think she was abroad, but he wouldn't know where because she had deliberately used cash to pay for flights and hotel bills.

"Are you happy?" Sango pressed anxiously.

"Incredibly..." Well, about as happy as she could be when it had been six days, fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes since she had last laid eyes on Inuyasha, Kagome reflected ruefully. But to vegetate alone, abandoned and neglected on Chymos, would've been even worse.

"Do you think Inuyasha might come to love you?"

Kagome thought about that. She had set her sights on him loving her but she wasn't sure it was a very realistic goal. Had Inuyasha ever been in love? It was very possible that she might settle for just being needed. Right now, all she could accurately forecast was that Inuyasha would be in a seething rage because she had left the island without telling him and hadn't made the slightest effort to get in touch.

But then that was what a mistress would do when the man in her life departed without mention of when he would return. A mistress was necessarily a self-sufficient creature.

And if Inuyasha hadn't yet got around to putting in place the arrangements by which he intended to see her and spend time with her, then that was his oversight, not hers. No mistress would tell her billionaire lover when she would be available...that was his department.

Kagome had tea with Sango and then she called a cab. With the mountain of luggage she had acquired, it was quite a squeeze. She directed the driver to the basement car park of the building Inuyasha had informed her was to be exclusively hers. She was a little apprehensive about how she was to gain entry. After all, Inuyasha didn't even know she was back in London yet, and possibly the place would be locked up and deserted.

But on that point she discovered that she had misjudged him. There was a security man in the lift.

"Miss Higuraashi...?"

"That's me. Would you see to my luggage, please?" Kagome stepped into the lift to be wafted upwards and wondered why the man was gaping at her.

When the doors slid back, she thought she had stopped on the wrong floor. The stark modern decor had been swept away as if it had never been. In growing amazement, Kagome explored the spacious apartment. The whole place had been transformed with antique furniture, wonderful rugs and a traditional and warm color scheme. King Kong on stilts couldn't have seen over the barriers ringing the roof garden and, just in case she still wasn't about to bring herself to step out into the fresh air, a good third of the space now rejoiced in being a conservatory.

The apartment was gorgeous. No expense had been spared, nothing that might add to her comfort had been overlooked, but, far from being impressed by Inuyasha's consideration of her likes and dislikes, and even her terror of heights, Kagome was almost reduced to groveling tears of despair. Inuyasha had had all this done just so that they could live apart.

Looked at from that angle, the lengths he had gone to in his efforts to make her content with her solitary lot seemed like a deadly insult and the most crushing of rejections.

Kagome unpacked. That took up what remained of the evening and her wardrobe soon overflowed into the guest-room next door. She took out the two-page list of Inuyasha's flaws that had become her talisman. Whenever she got angry with him, whenever she missed him, she took it out and reminded herself that while she might not be perfect, he was not perfect either. It was a surprisingly comforting exercise which somehow made her feel closer to him.

How long would it take him to work out where she was? She lay in her sunken bath under bubbles, miserable as sin.

She wanted to phone him but she wouldn't let herself. The perfect mistress did not phone her lover. That would be indiscreet. She put on a diaphanous azure-blue silk nightdress slit to the thigh and curled up on the huge brass bed in the master suite.

The arrival of the lift was too quiet and too far away for her to hear. But she heard the hard footsteps ringing down the corridor. Kagome tensed, anticipation filling her. The bedroom door thrust wide, framing Inuyasha.

In a black dinner jacket that fitted his broad shoulders like a glove, and narrow black trousers that accentuated the long, long length of his legs, he was breathtakingly handsome. Her heart went thud...and then thud again. His bow tie was missing; the top couple of studs on his white dress shirt were undone to reveal a sliver of vibrant brown skin.

Poised in the doorway, big hands clenched into fists and breathing rapidly as if he had come from somewhere in a heck of a hurry, he ran outraged golden eyes over her relaxed pose on the brass bed as she reclined back against the heaped-up luxurious pillows as if she hadn't a single care in the world.

"You're here on my first night back...what a lovely surprise!" Kagome caroled.


	10. Married to a Mistress 10

_**This history does not belong to me, it belongs to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I just post this story for fun.**_

CHAPTER TEN

Momentarily disconcerted by that chirpy greeting, Inuyasha stilled. His lush black lashes came down and swept up again as if he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing, never mind what he was hearing.

Having learned some very good lessons from him, Kagome took the opportunity to sit forward, shake back her wonderful mane of ebony hair and stretch so that not one inch of the remarkably sexy nightdress hugging her lithe curves could possibly escape his notice.

"What do you think?" she asked gaily. "I bought it in—"

His entire attention was locked on her, darker color highlighting his taut high cheekbones and the wrathful glitter of incredulity in his brilliant eyes. "Where the hell have you been for the past week?" he launched at her with thunderous aggression as he strode forward. "Do you realize that I flew back to Chymos before I realized you'd left the island?"

"Oh, no," Kagome groaned. "I would've felt awful if I'd known that!"

"Why the blazes didn't you phone me to tell me what you were thinking of doing?" Inuyasha demanded with raw incredulity. "You can shop any time you like but you don't need to do it in time that you could be with me!"

"Why didn't you phone me to tell me that you were coming back?" Kagome's eyes were as bright as sapphires. "You see, I couldn't phone you. None of the villa staff spoke a word of English and I don't have your phone number—"

Inuyasha froze. "What do you mean you don't have my number?"

"Well, you're not in the directory and I'm sure your office staff are very careful not to hand out privileged information like that to just anybody—"

"Theos...you're not just anybody!" Inuyasha were in such a rage he could hardly get the words out. "I expect to know where you are every minute of the day! And the best I could do was follow your credit card withdrawals as they leapfrogged across Europe!"

What Kagome was hearing now was bliss. She had been missed. "I think it really would be sensible for you to give me a contact number," she said gently. "I'm sorry, but I honestly never realized how possessive you could be—"

"Possessive?" Inuyasha snatched in a shuddering breath of visible restraint, scorching golden eyes hot as lava. "I am not possessive. I just wanted to know where you were."

"Every minute of the day," Kagome reminded him helplessly. "Well, how was I to know that when you didn't tell me?"

Inuyasha drove raking fingers through his luxuriant black hair. "You do not ever take off anywhere again without telling me where you're going...is that clear?" he growled, withdrawing a gold pen from the inside pocket of his well-cut jacket and striding over to the bedside table.

To her dismay he proceeded to use the blank back page of her list of his flaws to write on. She had left it lying face-down on the table. "What are you doing?"

"I am listing every number by which I can be reached. Never again will you use the excuse that you couldn't contact me! My portable phone, my confidential line, the apartment, the car phones, and when I'm abroad..."

And he wrote and he wrote and he wrote while Kagome watched in fascination. He had more access numbers than a telecommunications company. It was as if he was drawing up a network for constant communication. Mercifully it had not occurred to him, however, to take a closer look at what he was writing on.

"I got the news that you had reappeared while I was entertaining a group of Japanese industrialists," Inuyasha supplied grittily. "I had to sit through the whole blasted evening before I could get here!"

"If only I'd known," Kagome sighed, struggling to keep her tide of happiness in check. Inuyasha was no longer cold and remote. He had been challenged by the shocking discovery that she did not sit like an inanimate object stowed on a shelf when he was absent. He had been frustrated by not knowing where she was or exactly when or where she might choose to show up again. As a result, Inuyasha had had far more to think about than the argument on which they had parted on Chymos.

Inuyasha was still writing. He stopped to sling her a penetrating look of suspicion.

"You were in Rome...you were in Paris...who were you with?" he demanded darkly.

"I was on my own," Kagome responded with an injured look of dignity.

Inuyasha 's intent gaze lingered. A little of his tension evaporated. Dense lashes screened his eyes. "I was pretty angry with you..."

She knew that meant he had been thumping walls and raising Cain. From the instant he'd found her absent without leave from the island, he had been a volcano smoldering, just longing for the confrontational moment of release when he could erupt.

"I'd offer you a drink but I'm afraid all the cupboards are bare," Kagome remarked.

"Naturally...I wasn't expecting you to move in here."

Kagome frowned. "How can you say that when this entire apartment has obviously been remodeled for my occupation?"

Setting down his pen, Inuyasha straightened and settled gleaming dark eyes on her. "Look, that was before we got married... you might not have noticed, but things have changed since then."

Kagome looked blank. "Have they?"

Inuyasha's beautiful mouth compressed hard. "I've been thinking. You might as well come home with me. I'll stick a notice about our marriage in the paper—"

"No...I like things the way they are." Saying that was the hardest thing Kagome had ever done, but pride would not allow her to accept the role of wife when it was so grudgingly offered. "I love this apartment and, like you, I really do appreciate my own space. And there is no point in firing up a media storm about our marriage when it's going to be over in a few months."

Inuyasha studied her intently, like a scientist peeling layers off an alien object to penetrate its mysteries. And then, without the slightest warning, his brilliant eyes narrowed and the merest hint of a smile lessened the tension still etched round his mouth.

"OK...fine, no problem. You're being very sensible about this."

Inside herself, Kagome collapsed like a pricked balloon. He sounded relieved by her decision. He saw no point in them attempting to live as a normal married couple. Evidently he still saw no prospect of them having any kind of a future together. But Kagome wanted him begging her to share the same roof. Clearly she had a long way to go if she was to have any hope of achieving that objective.

"But I would appreciate an explanation for your sudden departure from Chymos," Inuyasha completed.

Kagome tautened. "I didn't know when you were coming back. You were furious. It seemed a good idea to let the dust settle."

"Do you know why I came back to London?" Strong face taut, Inuyasha drew himself up to his full commanding height, the two-page list still clasped in one hand and attracting her covert and anxious attention.

"I haven't a clue."

"I had to sort out Toutosai."

Quite unprepared for that announcement, Kagome gasped. "Toutosai?"

With an absent glance at the loose pages in his hand, Inuyasha proceeded to fold them and slot them carelessly into the pocket of his jacket. Utterly appalled by that development, and already very much taken back by his reference to Shio Toutosai, Kagome watched in sick horror as her defamatory list disappeared from view.

"Toutosai had to be dealt with. Surely you didn't think I planned to let him get away with what he did to you?" Inuyasha drawled in a fulminating tone of disbelief. "He stole a whole chunk of your life and, not content with that, he ripped you off with that loan—"

"Inuyasha...T-Toutosai is a sick man—"

"Since he had the bypass on he is well on the road to full recovery," Inuyasha contradicted grimly. "But he's thoroughly ashamed of himself now, and so he should be."

"You actually confronted him?" Kagome was still reeling in shock.

"And in Kaede's presence. Now that she knows the real story of your dealings with her husband, she's ecstatic. Toutosai had no plans to confess the truth and his punctured vanity will be his punishment. He trapped you into a demeaning, distressing charade just to hit back at Kaede!" Inuyasha concluded harshly.

"I never dreamt you would feel so strongly about it," Kagome admitted tautly.

"You're mine now," Inuyasha countered with indolent cool. "I look after everything that belongs to me to the very best of my ability."

"I don't belong to you... I'm just passing through..." Hot, offended color had betraying flushed Kagome's cheeks. She wanted to hit him but, surveying him, she just gritted her teeth because she knew that the instant she got that close she would just melt into his arms and draw that dark, arrogant head down to hers. Almost seven days of sensory and emotional deprivation were making her feel incredibly weak.

Poised at the foot of the bed, lean brown hands flexing round the polished brass top rail, Inuyasha rested slumberous yet disturbingly intent dark eyes on her beautiful face. 'Toutosai and Kaede do, however, lead one to reflect on the peculiarity of the games adults play with each other," he commented levelly. "What a mistake it can be lo underestimate your opponent..."

A slight chill ran down Kagome 's backbone. Games? No. surely he couldn't have recognized what she was trying to do, she told herself urgently, for, apart from anything else, she did not consider herself to be playing a game. "I don't follow..."

"Toutosai neglected his wife. Kaede had a silly affair. She wouldn't say sorry. He was too bitter to forgive her. So they spent three years frantically squabbling over the terms of their divorce, enjoying a sort of twisted togetherness and never actually making it into court. Neither one of them allowed for the other's intransigence or stamina."

"Crazy," Kagome whispered very low.

"Isn't it just?" Inuyasha agreed, flicking a glance down at the thin gold watch on his wrist. He released a soft sigh of regret. "I'd love to stay. However, I did promise to show my face at my cousin Yuhiko's twenty-first celebration at a nightclub...and it's getting late."

Kagome sat there as immobile as a stone dropped in a deep pond and plunged into sudden dreadful suffocating darkness. "You're...leaving?" she breathed, not quite levelly. "I lead a fairly hectic social life, pethi mou. Business, family commitments," Inuyasha enumerated lazily. "But the pressure of time and distance should ensure that the snatched moments we share will be all the more exciting—"

"Snatched moments?" Kagome echoed in a strained and slightly shrill undertone as she slid off the bed in an abrupt movement. "You think I am planning to sit here and wait for "snatched moments" of your precious time?"

"Kagome...you're beginning to sound just a little like a wife," Inuyasha pointed out with a pained aspect. "The one thing a mistress must never ever do is nag."

"Nag?" Kagome gasped, ready to grab him by the lapels of his exquisitely tailored dinner jacket and shake him until he rattled like a box of cutlery in a grinding machine.

"Or sulk, or shout or look discontented..." Inuyasha warmed to his theme with a glimmering smile of satisfaction. "This is where I expect to come to relax and shrug off the tensions of the day... I'll dine here with you tomorrow night—"

Kagome was seething and ready to cut off her nose to spite her face. "I'm going out."

"Kagome..." Inuyasha shook his imperious dark head in reproof. "Naturally I expect your entire day to revolve round being available when I want you to be."

"For snatched moments?" Kagome asserted in outrage. "What am I supposed to do with myself the rest of the time?"

"Shop," Inuyasha delivered with the comforting air of a male dropping news she must be dying to hear. "Any woman who can spend for an entire week without flagging once is a serious shopaholic"

Kagome flushed to the roots of her hair, assailed by extreme mortification. She had spent an absolute fortune.

"And if it's a phobia, you should now be very happy," Inuyasha continued bracingly. "With me bankrolling you, you won't ever need to take the cure."

Kagome was mute. Her every objective, her script, everything she had dreamt up with which to challenge him over the past week now lay in discarded tatters round her feet. As yet she couldn't quite work out how that had happened. Inuyasha had started out angry, fully meeting her expectations, but he was now in a wonderfully good mood...even though he was about to walk out on her.

During that weak moment of inattention, Inuyasha reached out to tug her into his arms with maddeningly confident hands. Kagome was rigid, and then she just drooped, drained of fight. He curved her even closer, crushing her up against him with a groan of unconcealed pleasure and sending every nerve in her body haywire with wanton longing.

"If it wasn't for this wretched party, I'd stay..." Inuyasha pushed against her with knowing eroticism, shamelessly acquainting her with the intensity of his arousal. Kagome's heartbeat went from a race into an all-out sprint. Heat surged between her thighs, leaving her weak with lust.

"I could throw you down on the bed and sate this overpowering ache for fulfillment—'

Kagome said, "Yes...

"But it would be wicked and unforgivable to make a snack out of what ought to be a five course banquet." Even as he talked Inuyasha was tracing a passage down her extended throat with his mouth in hot, hungry little forays. He slid a long, powerful thigh between hers to press against the most sensitive spot in her entire shivering body. "I really do have to go..."

"Kiss me," Kagome begged.

"Absolutely not...I'd go up in flames," Inuyasha groaned with incredulous force, tearing himself back from her with shimmering golden eyes full of frustration.

Kagome clutched the bed to stay upright. Inuyasha backed away one slow step at a time, like a recovering alcoholic struggling to resist the temptation of a drink. "Christos...you're so beautiful, and so totally perfect for me," he murmured with hoarse satisfaction.

Kagome blinked. All she could focus on was the fact that he was leaving. Everything that mattered to her in the whole world was walking out, and it felt as if it was for ever. The shock of separation from him was so painful it swallowed her alive. And a kind of terror swept over her then, because for the first time she tasted the full extent of her own agonizing vulnerability.

She watched him until the last possible moment. She listened to him striding fast down the corridor. She even strained to hear the lift but she couldn't. And then she collapsed in a heap on the soft thick carpet and burst into floods of tears. Dear heaven, what an idiot she had been to set out to provide Inuyasha with a challenge! All of a sudden she could not credit that she had been so insane as to refuse the chance of making something of their marriage.

He had said that he hadn't expected her to move into this apartment. He had said that she might not have noticed but things had changed. He hadn't even mentioned that wretched argument over that equally wretched will of her godmother's. "You might as well come home with me," he had drawled. Her stupid, stupid pride had baulked; he had sounded for all the world like a disgruntled male grudgingly facing up to an inevitable evil. But no matter how halfhearted that offer had seemed, shouldn't she have accepted it?

She would've had something to build on then. Her rightful place as his wife. Instead, she had turned it down, gambled her every hope of happiness on the slender hope that Inuyasha would learn to love her and. want her to be more than a mistress in his life. But, judging by his behavior in the aftermath of that refusal, she appeared to have offered Inuyasha exactly what he wanted.

No, she had not made a mistake in rejecting that offer, she conceded heavily. How long would it have been before he resented the restraints of such a marriage? He had only married her for sex. She shuddered. There had to be a lot more than that on offer before she would risk figuring in the tabloids as the ultimate discarded bimbo yet again.

Inuyasha certainly wouldn't have been offering a wife snatched moments of his time...nor would he have been taking off for a nightclub on his own. Kagome sobbed her heart out and then, after splashing her swollen face with loads of cold water, she surveyed her weak reflection in the mirror with loathing and climbed into her lonely bed.

Tonight she had got some things wrong, but ultimately she had still made the right decision. She had played right into his hands but it was early days yet, she reminded herself bracingly. Stamina—she needed buckets of stamina to keep up with Inuyasha. It was so strange, she reflected numbly, every time she rejoiced in the belief that she had got Inuyasha off balance, he retaliated by doing the exact same thing to her...

The instant Kagome was engulfed by the hard heat of a roughened male body; she came awake with a start. Pulling away with a muffled moan of fright, she sat up in a daze.

Dawn light was filtering through the curtains.

"I didn't mean to wake you up..." Inuyasha murmured.

Utterly unconvinced by that plea of innocence, Kagome struggled to focus on him in the dim light. Against the pale bed linen, he was all intriguing darkness and shadow. Her heart was still palpitating at such a rate; she pressed a hand to her breast and suppressed the lowering suspicion that Inuyasha might have more stamina than she had. "What are you ddoing here?" she stammered helplessly.

"It was a long drive home...what do you think I'm doing here?" Inuyasha demanded with sudden disturbing amusement. He rolled over to her side of the bed at the speed of light to haul her back into his arms and seal her into all-pervasive contact with every charged line of his big, powerful frame.

"Oh..." Kagome said breathlessly.

"I know anticipation is supposed to be the cutting edge of erotic pleasure but I am not really into self-denial, agape mou," Inuyasha confided huskily, his warm breath fanning her cheekbone. "It's been a hell of a week...seven very rough days of wondering if you had left me and found another man."

As it had genuinely not occurred to her that Inuyasha might interpret her departure from Chymos in that melodramatic light, Kagome was shaken. "But—"

"The thought of you out there...loose," Inuyasha framed with a hoarse edge to his dark, deep drawl.

"What do you mean by..."loose"?"

"The world is full of men like me. If I saw a ravishing beauty like you walking down a street alone, I'd make a move on her like a shot!"

Kagome was not best pleased by that assurance. "If I ever have the slightest reason to think you're two-timing me, I'll be out of here so fast—"

"How can a husband two-time his wife?" 'He has an affair...or a mistress.' "Well, you've got the market cornered there, haven't you?" Inuyasha breathed with galling amusement, running his hands down to the curvaceous swell of her hips to cup them and urge her even closer.

Kagome quivered, her body responding with a wanton life all of its own, but she struggled desperately to keep on talking because potential infidelity was an extremely important subject, to be tackled and dealt with on the spot. "Wh-who was it said that when the mistress becomes the wife, a vacancy is created?"

"Some guy who hadn't had the good fortune to discover you," Inuyasha growled with blatant satisfaction. "You are like other women."

Kagome blossomed at what sounded like a true compliment. "Did you have a good time at the club?'"

"What do you think?" Inuyasha nipped at the tender lobe of her ear in sensual punishment and curved her suggestively into contact with the straining evidence of his arousal. "I've been like this all night, hot and hungry and aching—"'

Kagome kissed him to shut him up; he was embarrassing He seized on that invitation with a fervor that fully bore out his frustration. She came up for air again, awash with helpless tenderness. He was irredeemably oversexed but she just adored him. Something to build on. Obviously being a sex object was the something to build on. How the mighty had fallen, she conceded, and then Inuyasha kissed her again and all rational thought was suspended...

Kagome crept out of bed and tiptoed across the carpet to the chair where she could see Inuyasha's clothing draped. She would get the list back before he found it. The very last thing their relationship needed now was the short, sharp shocking result of Inuyasha seeing that awful list of all that she had once thought was wrong with him. That list had been a real hatchet job. After all, when she had written it, she'd been trying to wean herself off him.

Kagome couldn't believe her eyes when she discovered that the jacket she was searching wasn't his dinner jacket! Before he had returned to her at dawn, Inuyasha had evidently gone back to his own apartment to change. She could've screamed... Stamina, she reminded herself, but her nerves were already shot to hell. "Kagome...what are you doing?"

Kagome jerked and dropped his jacket as if she had been burnt. "Nothing!"

"What time is it?" he queried softly.

"Eight..."

"Come back to bed, agape mou."

Kagome was so relieved he hadn't noticed what she was doing, she responded with alacrity.

An hour and a half later she sat across the dining-room table while breakfast was served by Inuyasha's manservant, Nikos. He had imported his own staff to remedy the empty cupboards in the kitchen. His efficiency in sweeping away such problems just took her breath away. Now he lounged back, skimming through a pile of newspapers and onto his third cup of black coffee.

He was a fantastic lover, she thought dreamily. He could be so gentle and then so...so wild. And he ought to be exhausted after only a couple of hours of sleep, but instead Inuyasha emanated a sizzling aura of pent-up energy this morning. I'm never, ever going to get over him, she thought in sudden panic. I need my list back to de-program myself from this dependency.

Without warning, Inuyasha bit out something raw and incredulous in Greek and sprang upright, sending half his coffee flying. Volatile, volcanic, like a grizzly bear, Kagome reminded herself studiously. He strode across the dining-room, swept up the phone, punched out some numbers and raked down the line, "That piece on Higurashi Kagome on the gossip page...who authorized that? You print a retraction tomorrow. And after that she's the invisible woman...you tell that malicious poison-pen artist to find another target. She's supposed to be writing up society stuff, not trawling the gutter for sleaze!"

About thirty seconds later, Inuyasha replaced the receiver. Kagome was suffering from dropped-jaw syndrome. Only Nikos, evidently inured to the liveliness of life with Inuyasha, was functioning normally. Having mopped up the split coffee, he had brought a fresh cup, and he now removed himself from the room again with admirable cool.

Inuyasha slapped the offending newspaper down in front of Kagome. "This is what happens when you stroll round Paris without protection," he informed her grimly. "You didn't even realize you'd been caught on camera, did you?"

"No," she confided, and swallowed hard, still in shock from that startling knee-jerk demonstration of male protectiveness. She cast a brief glance at the photo. "But do you really think that newspaper is likely to pay the slightest heed to your objections?"

"I own that newspaper," Inuyasha breathed flatly, his lean face sardonic. "And just look at what that stupid columnist has written!"

Kagome obediently bent her head. She put a finger on the lines of italic type to the right of the photo. The tiny words blurred and shifted hopelessly because she couldn't even begin to concentrate with Inuyasha standing over her as he was.

The silence thundered.

Then a lean brown forefinger came down to shift hers to the section of type below the photograph. "It's that bit, actually,' Inuyasha informed her, half under his breath.

Kagome turned white, her stomach reacting with a violent lurch. "I never read this kind of stuff...and you've caught me out. I'm horribly long-sighted..."

The silence went on and on and on. She couldn't bring herself to look up to see whether or not he had been fooled by that desperate lie.

In an abrupt movement, Inuyasha removed the newspaper. "You shouldn't be looking at that sort of sleazy trash anyway. It's beneath your notice!"

The sick tension, the shattering fear of discovery drained out of Kagome, but it left her limp, perspiration beading her short upper lip. How could she tell him? How could she admit handicap like dyslexia to someone like Inuyasha Like many, he might not even believe that the condition really existed; he might think that it was just a fancy name coined to make the not very bright feel better about their academic deficiencies. Over the years Kagome had met a lot of attitudes like that, and had learnt that any attempt to explain the problems she had often resulted in contempt or even greater discomfiture.

"Kagome..." Inuyasha cleared his throat with rare hesitancy. "I don't think there's anything wrong with your eyesight, and I don't think it's a good idea at this stage in our relationship to pretend that there is."

As that strikingly candid admission sank in, appalled humiliation engulfed Kagome. This was her worst nightmare. Inuyasha had uncovered her secret. She could have borne anybody but him seeing through the lying excuses that came so readily to her lips when her reading or writing skills were challenged. She sat there just staring into space, blocking him out.

"Kagome... I don't like upsetting you but I'm not about to drop the subject." Inuyasha bent and hauled the chair around by the arms, with her still sitting in it. "You are very intelligent so there has to be a good reason why you can't read ten lines in a newspaper with the same ease that I can. And, you see, I remember your notebook when you were a waitress...like a type of shorthand instead of words."

Kagome parted compressed lips like an automaton. "I'm dyslexic... OK?"

"OK...do you want some more coffee?" Inuyasha enquired without skipping a beat as he straightened.

"No, I've had enough...I thought you'd want to drag it all out of me," she said then accusingly.

"Not right now, if it's upsetting you to this degree," Inuyasha returned evenly.

"I'm not upset!" Kagome flew upright and stalked across the room in direct contradiction of the statement. "I just don't like people prying and poking about in what is my business and nobody else's!"

Inuyasha regarded her in level enquiry. "Dyslexia is more widespread than perhaps you realize. Yuhiko, whose twenty-first I attended last night, is also dyslexic, but he's now in his second year at Oxford. His two younger brothers also have problems. Didn't you get extra tuition at school to help you to cope?"

Relaxing infinitesimally, Kagome folded her arms and shook her head dully; "I went to about a dozen different schools in all—"

"A dozen?" Inuyasha interrupted in astonishment.

"Dad and I never stayed in one place for long. He always ended up owing someone money. If it wasn't the landlord it was the local bookie, or some bloke he had laid a bet with and lost...so we would do a flit to pastures new."

"And then the whole cycle would start again?" Inuyasha questioned tautly.

"Yes..." Kagome pursued her lips, her throat aching as she evaded his shrewd appraisal. "I was ten before a teacher decided that there might be an explanation other than stupidity for my difficulties and I was assessed. I was supposed to get extra classes, but before it could be arranged Dad and I moved on again." She tilted her chin, denying her own agonizing self-consciousness on the subject. "In the next school, after I'd been tested, they just stuck me in the lowest form alongside the rest of the no-hopers."

Inuyasha actually winced. "When did you leave school?"

"As fast as my legs could carry me at sixteen!" Kagome admitted with sudden explosive bitterness. "As my godmother once said to me, " Kagome, you can't expect to be pretty and lever.'' "

"I don't think I like the sound of her very much."

"She was trying to be kind but she thought I was as thick as a brick because I was such a slow reader, and my writing was awful and my spelling absolutely stinks!" Feeling the tears coming on, Kagome shot across the room like a scalded cat and fled back to the bedroom.

Inuyasha came down on the bed beside her.

"And don't you dare try to pretend that you don't see me differently now!" Kagome sobbed furiously.

"You're right. You are incredibly brave to cope with something like that all on your own and still be such a firecracker," Inuyasha breathed grittily. "And if I'd known this when I had Toutosai in my sights, I'd have torn him limb from limb... because you couldn't read that bloody loan contract, could you?"

"Bits of it...I can get by...but it takes me longer to read things. I didn't want to show myself up, so I just signed."

"Yuhiko was fortunate. His problems were recognized when he was still a child. He got all the help he needed hut you were left to suffer in frustration...you shouldn't be— you mustn't be ashamed of the condition.''

Tugging her back against him, Inuyasha smoothed her hair off her damp brow as if he was comforting a distressed and sensitive child, and she jerked away from him. He persisted.

Out of pride, she tried to shrug him off again, but it was a very half-hearted gesture and recognized as such. Somehow, when Inuyasha closed his powerful arms round her, she discovered, nothing could possibly feel that bad.

"What did that piece in the gossip column say anyway?" Kagome wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"That the rumors about you and I were complete nonsense. But that it looked like you had attracted another wealthy "friend"—the implication being that he was another married man."

"The columnist got that bit right." An involuntary laugh escaped Kagome.

Inuyasha's grip tightened. "It didn't amuse me."

Kagome then dug up the courage to ask something that had been puzzling her all night. "Why aren't you still furious about me deciding to marry you because of my

godmother's will?"

"In your position, I might have reacted the same way. I fight fire with fire too," Inuyasha admitted reflectively. "I don't surrender, I get even. But, you see, there comes a time when that can become a dangerously destructive habit..."

"I'll stop trying to top everything you do," Kagome promised tautly.

"I'll stop trying to set you up for a fall," Inuyasha swore, and then he surveyed her with sudden decision. "And we'll fly back the island to enjoy some privacy."

"You really are a fabulous cook," Inuyasha commented appreciatively as Kagome closed the empty picnic hamper.

Kagome tried to look modest and failed. In the most unexpected ways, Inuyasha was a complete pushover. With all those servants around, and the ability to eat every meal at five-star locations if he chose, no woman had ever, it seemed, made the effort to cook for him. And he was wildly and unduly impressed by the domestic touch. If she cracked an egg, he made her feel like Mother Earth.

"You could make some lucky guy a really wonderful wife," Inuyasha drawled indolently. Kagome leant over him and mock-punched him in the ribs. Bronzed even deeper by the sun. narrow hips and long powerful thighs sheathed in a pair of low-slung cut-off jeans, Inuyasha was all lean, dark, rampantly virile male. She stared down at him, entrapped, heart thumping, breathing constricted. He threaded a lean hand into her tumbling hair to imprison her in that vulnerable position.

Disturbingly serious golden eyes focused on her. "Tell me, have you ever trusted a member of my sex?"

"No," Kagome Kagome admitted uneasily.

"I feel as if I'm on trial. We're married. You won't wear my ring. You still don't want anyone to know you're my wife—"

"You made the offer to announce our marriage out of guilt."

"I'm not that big a fool. I think you're paying me back for refusing to do it the right way from the start," Inuyasha countered steadily. "I hurt you and I'm sorry, but we have to move on from there."

Kagome 's gaze was strained, wary. "I'm not ready for that yet."

"Thanks for that vote of faith." Releasing her with startling abruptness, Inuyasha sprang upright and strode up the beach.

Fighting a sensation of panic, and the urge to chase after him, Kagome hugged her knees tightly and stared out at the sun-drenched blue of the sea. The first row since they had left London. It totally terrified her. She could not overcome the fear that she was just a fascinating interlude for Inuyasha, that she did not have what it would take to hold him.

She could not face the prospect of being his wife in public and then being dumped a few months down the line when he lost interest...

And yet, to be fair, so far Inuyasha had not shown the slightest sign of becoming bored with her. In fact, with every passing day Inuyasha made her feel better about herself, so much more than a beautiful face and body—something no man had ever achieved or even tried to achieve.

Yesterday he had had to fly to Athens for the day on business. Three gorgeous bouquets of the white lilies she loved had been flown in during his absence. And every one of them had carried a personal message, carefully block-printed by hi hand. "Missing you." "Missing you more." "Missing you even more," Kagome recalled headily. So impractical, so over-the-top. Not bad for a guy she had believed didn't have a romantic, imaginative, thoughtful, sensitive or tender bone in his entire beautiful body.

But for the past ten days Inuyasha had been proving just how wrong she had been to attribute such flaws to him. The list? Well, as yet, since that dinner jacket was still in London, she hadn't had a chance to get hold of it, and the list might well have been dumped by Nikos or trashed at the dry-cleaners or some such thing by now. She knew Inuyasha couldn't 't have found it before they left London. He couldn't possibly have kept his mouth shut on the subject if he had.

He had presented her with a laptop computer with a wonderful spell-check mechanism on it so that she could write things with ease. He read newspapers with her. He was so patient with her efforts and, as her confidence had risen from absolute rock-bottom inadequacy, she had improved amazingly. How had she ever imagined he was selfish and inconsiderate? And how had she ever thought she could bask in such generosity and not be expected to give some thing back? And she knew what he wanted back. Total unconditional surrender. That was what trust was. She was being such a terrible, selfish coward...

Kagome found him in the airy lounge. Hovering in the doorway, she studied him, her heart jumping worse than it did when he took her up in the helicopter most mornings "I trust you," she said tautly, a betraying shimmer brightening her eyes.

Inuyasha dealt her a pained, unimpressed look, and then he groaned with suppressed savagery. Striding across the room, he pulled her into his arms in one powerful motion "Christos...don't look at me like that, agape mou!" he urged ruefully. "Forget that whole conversation. I'm just not very good at patience... not a lot of practice and too big an ego."

"I like you the way you are."

"The lies women tell in certain moods," Inuyasha sighed with an ironic look.

"It's not a lie, Inuyasha —"

"Possibly it won't be...some time in the future." And with that last word he sealed his sensual mouth to hers with a kind of hungry desperation.

The ground beneath Kagome's feet rocked. In that one way Inuyasha controlled her. He understood that. He used it. She accepted it; the passion he unleashed inside her was more than she could withstand. But, most importantly of all, it was the one time she could show him affection without the fear that she might be revealing how much she loved him. And if anything, after the past ten days, she loved him ten times more.

She was enslaved, utterly, hopelessly enslaved. So the minute Inuyasha touched her she let all that pent-up emotion loose on him. She clutched, she clung, she heaved ecstatic sighs and she hugged him tight. And he responded with a flattering amount of enthusiasm every time.

Probing her mouth with hot, sexual intimacy, Inuyasha un-dipped her bikini bra. As her breasts spilt full and firm into his palms, he uttered a hungry sound of pleasure. He let his thumbs glance over her urgently sensitive pink nipples. Kagome moaned, her spine arching as he used his mouth to torment those straining buds. She was so excited she couldn't breathe. Reaching down, he un-dipped the bikini briefs clasped at her slim hips and pulled them free, leaving her naked.

"I love exciting you," Inuyasha confided hoarsely, and he kissed her again, slowly, sensually this time. A long, powerful thigh nudged hers apart. A surge of unbearable heat left her boneless as he bent her back over his supporting arm, splaying his hand across the clenched muscles of her stomach. His skilled fingers skated through the cluster of damp ebony curls and into the hot, melting warmth beneath. She whimpered and squirmed under his mouth, and at the exact moment when her legs began to buckle he picked her up with easy strength and carried her down to the bedroom.

He stood over her, unzipping the cut-offs, peeling them off. And then he came down to her. "Inuyasha..." she pleaded, aroused beyond bearing.

Answering the powerful need he had awakened, he took her hard and fast, as always disturbingly attuned to the level of her need. And then there was nothing, nothing but him and the wild sensation that controlled her as surely as he did. She cried out as he drove her to a peak of exquisite pleasure and then slumped, absolutely, totally drained.

"Have you ever been in love?" Inuyasha asked lazily then.

Unprepared for serious conversation, Kagome blinked and met brilliant assessing eyes.

"Yes."

"What happened?"

Kagome lowered her lashes protectively. "He didn't love me back...er, what about you?"

"Once..."

Kagome opened her eyes wide. "And?"

Inuyasha focused on her swollen mouth, ebony lashes screening his gaze. "I fell victim to a feminist with high expectations of the man in her life. She thought I was great in bed but that was kind of it."

"Tart!" Kagome condemned without hesitation, absolutely outraged to discover he had loved somebody else and, worst of all, somebody wholly undeserving of the honor. There was just so much more to Inuyasha than his ability to drive her crazy with desire, she thought furiously. He was highly entertaining company and such a wretched tease sometimes...

Ambar eyes met hers with disturbing clarity. "She wasn't and isn't a tart...is that jealousy, I hear?"

"I'm not the jealous type," Kagome lied, and, snaking free of him with the Ice Queen look she hadn't given him in weeks, she slid off the bed. "I feel like a shower."

On the flight back to London, Kagome contemplated the wedding ring now embellishing her finger. It was new, a broad platinum band. It was also accompanied by a gorgeous knuckleduster of sapphires and diamonds.

"An engagement ring?" she had asked him incredulously.

"A gift," Inuyasha had insisted. But he had produced both at spectacular speed.

Indeed, her finger was now so crowded, a glance at a hundred yards would give the news that she was married to even the most disinterested onlooker. But why couldn't Inuyasha mention the prospect of having children...or something, anything that would make her feel like a really permanent fixture in his life? She wondered ruefully. Maybe he didn't want children. Or maybe he just couldn't contemplate the idea of having children with her. Certainly he hadn't taken a single risk in that department.

They parted at the airport. Inuyasha headed for the Taisho building and Kagome traveled back to his apartment, her new home. Barely stopping to catch her breath, she found the main bedroom, went into the dressing-room and searched through wardrobe after wardrobe of fabulous suits in search of that dinner jacket with her list in the pocket.

She found half a dozen dinner jackets, but not one of them contained what she sought. Obviously that list had been dumped. She relaxed.

Inuyasha called her at lunchtime. "Something's come up. I may be very late tonight," he informed her.

Kagome's face fell a mile but her response was upbeat. "Don't worry, I'll amuse myself—"

"How?" Inuyasha interrupted instantaneously, "I'll have an early night." Kagome worked hard to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"I have this recurring image of you hitting the town on your own."

"Because you know you got away with going to that nightclub by yourself, but you won't ever again," Kagome murmured with complete sincerity.

Kagome couldn't believe how much she missed him that night. She thought she would turn over at some stage and find him there in the bed beside her, and it was something of a shock to wake up at eight and discover she was still alone.

By the time she sat down to breakfast, however, the table was rejoicing in a huge bunch of white lilies. "Missing you too much," the card complained. Kagome heaved a happy sigh, consoled by the sight. Her portable phone buzzed.

"Thank you for the flowers," she said, since nobody else but Inuyasha had her number. "Where are you?"

"The office. I was out of town last night. It was too late to drive back and I didn't want to wake you up by phoning in the early hours."

"The next time, phone." Kagome urged.

"What are you wearing, agape mou?" Inuyasha enquired huskily.

Kagome gave a little shiver and crammed the phone even closer to her ear. The sound of that honeyed drawl just knocked her out. "Shocking pink...suit...four-inch stilettos," she whispered hoarsely. "I can't wait to take them all off."

"How am I supposed to concentrate when you say things like that?" Inuyasha demanded in a driven undertone, "I want you to miss me."

"I'm missing you...OK?"

"OK...when can I expect a snatched moment?"

"Don't go out anywhere. I'll pick you up at eleven. I've got a surprise for you."

Kagome flicked through the topmost newspaper and went as usual to the gossip column. She saw the picture of Inuyasha instantly. Her attention lodged lovingly on how wonderfully photogenic he was, and then her gaze slowly slewed sideways to take in the woman who occupied the photo with him, the woman whose hand he was intimately clasping across a table.

Aghast, she just stared for a full count of ten seconds. Her stomach twisted, her brow dampened. She felt sick. Natalie Cibaud, the movie actress...

OOOOKKKKK.. I'm back.. what the hell is Inuyasha doing with Natalie? OMG :O

I hope you liked these 2 chapters… I'm planning to put another 2 this weekend, so be prepared! This is a long Fanfic divided in 3 different stories, the author had an amazing imagination when she wrote it =P

I see you all on next chapters, take care!

XOXO Sahora


	11. Married to a Mistress 11

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Fresh from reports of an on-off affair with the model HigurashiKagome, Greek tycoon Taisho Inuyasha , our all-time favorite heartbreaker, seen dining last night with the ravishing actress Natalie Cibaud. Is it off with Kagome and on with Natalie again? Or is this triangle set to run and run?

Last night? Dear heaven, Inuyasha had been with another woman? With Natalie Cibaud? Kagome just couldn't believe it. She kept on laboriously re-reading the column and staring an anguished hole into the photo. Then her stomach got the better of her. She lost her breakfast in the cloakroom.

Sick and dizzy, she reeled back to the table to study the card she had received with her flowers. 'Missing you too much.' There was a certain appalling candor in that admission, wasn't there? Evidently Inuyasha couldn't be trusted out of her sight for five minutes. And, trusting woman that she was, Inuyasha had been out of her sight for almost twenty-four hours...

Kagome asked Nikos to have the car brought around. She swept up her portable phone. No, she wasn't going to warn Inuyasha. Nor was she about to sit and wait for him to arrive with whatever surprise his guilty conscience had dreamt up. She would confront him in the Taisho building. Her phone buzzed in the lift. She ignored it.

The phone went again in the limousine. Inuyasha was trying to call her. She switched the phone off with trembling fingers. Offered the car phone some minutes later, she uttered a stringent negative. Getting a little nervous, was he? By now, Inuyasha would've been tipped off about that piece in the gossip column. He knew he had been caught out. He had been unfaithful to her. He must have been. He had been out all night. All..night…. Kagome shivered, gooseflesh pricking her clammy skin. She was in sick shock. Why ...why? was all she could think.

Until now she hadn't appreciated just how entirely hers Inuyasha had begun to seem. She had trusted him one hundred per cent. And now she couldn't comprehend how her trust had become so unassailable. He had never mentioned love, never promised to be faithful.

On the very brink of making a public announcement of their marriage, Inuyasha had betrayed her. Why? Was this one of those male sexual ego things women found so incomprehensible? Or was an adulterous fling his revealing reaction to the prospect of fully committing himself to her?

Magnificent in her rage, Kagome stalked into the Taisho building. Every head in the vicinity seemed to turn. They did a double-take at the bodyguards in her wake. Kagome stepped into the executive lift.

Inuyasha had to be gnashing his teeth. Famous for his discretion in his private life, and his success in keeping his personal affairs out of the gossip columns, he would've assumed he was safe from discovery. Or had he deliberately sought to be found out? Was she becoming paranoid? The simplest explanations were usually the most likely, she re fleeted wretchedly. Had Inuyasha just met up with Natalie Cibaud again and suddenly realized that she was the woman he really wanted?

The receptionist on the top floor stared and rose slowly to her feet.

Kagome strode on past, the stillness of her pale features dominated by eyes as brilliant as sapphires. Agog faces appeared at doorways. Without breaking her stride, Kagome reached the foot of the corridor and, thrusting wide the door of Inuyasha's office, she swept in and sent the door slamming shut behind her again.

Inuyasha was standing in the centre of the room, lean, hard-boned face whip-taut, golden eyes shimmering.

A pain as sharp as a knife cut through Kagome. She could read nothing but angry frustration in those startlingly handsome features. That neither shame nor regret could be seen savaged her. "Before I walk out of your life for ever, I have a few things to say to you—"

Inuyasha moved forward and spread silencing hands. "Kagome —"

"Don't you dare interrupt me when I'm shouting at you!" Kagome launched. "And don't say my name like that. The only way you could get around me at this moment is with a rope! When I saw that photo of you with Natalie Cibaud, I couldn't believe my eyes—"

"Good," Inuyasha slotted in fiercely. "Because you shouldn't have believed what you were seeing. That photo was issued by Natalie's agent three months ago! That dinner date took place three months ago!"

"I don't believe you," Kagome breathed jerkily, studying him with stunned intensity.

"Then call my lawyer. I've already been in touch with him. I intend to sue that newspaper."

Kagome's lashes fluttered. Her legs trembled. She slumped back against the door. Widening blue eyes dazed, she framed raggedly, "Are you saying that...you weren't with Natalie last night'?"

"Kagome, I haven't laid eyes on Natalie since the night you took ill. We did not part the best of friends."

The tremble in Kagome's lower limbs was inexorably spreading right through her entire body. "But I thought you saw her after that—"

"You thought wrong. I have neither seen nor spoken to her since that night, and as far as I'm aware she's not even in the UK right now. Kagome...you should know I haven't the smallest desire for any other woman while you arc in my life," Inuyasha swore, anxiously searching her shaken face and then lapsing into roughened Greek as he reached for her and held her so tight and close she couldn't breathe.

"You s-said if you saw a beautiful woman walk down the street—"

"No, I said, "a ravishing beauty like you"," Inuyasha contradicted with strong emphasis. "And there is no other woman like you. When I realized you must've seen that picture, it was like having my own heart ripped out! I can't bear for you to be hurt—not by me, not by anyone, agape mou."

Strongly reassured by that unexpectedly emotional speech, Kagome gazed wordlessly up at him. Inuyasha breathed in deep and drew back from her. Golden eyes meeting her bemused scrutiny, he murmured tautly, "I have so much I want to say to you...but there is someone waiting to see you and it would be cruel to keep him waiting any longer. Your father is already very nervous of his reception."

"My...my father?' Kagome whispered shakily. "He's here?"

"I put private detectives on his trail and they contacted me as soon as they found him. I went to see him yesterday. I had planned to bring him back to the apartment to surprise you." Inuyasha guided her over to one of the comfortable armchairs and settled her down carefully, seeming to recognize that she was in need of that assistance. "I'll send him in..."

Stiff with strain, Kagome breathed unevenly, "Just tell me one thing before you go...has Dad asked you for money?"

"No. No, he hasn't. He's cleaned up his act, Kagome. He's holding down a job and trying to make a decent life for himself." Inuyasha shrugged. "But he would be the first one to admit that he still has to fight the temptation to go back to his old habits."

Her troubled eyes misted with tears. As Higurashi Onigumo stepped uncertainly through the door through which Inuyasha had just departed, Kagome slid upright. Her father looked older, his hair greyer, and he had put on weight. He also looked very uncertain of himself.

"I wasn't sure about coming here after what I did," her father admitted uncomfortably. "It's very hard for me to face you now. I let you down the whole time I was bringing you up but I let you down worst of all three years ago, when I left you to pay the price for my stupidity."

Kagome's stiffness gave way. Closing the distance between them, she gave the older man a comforting hug. "You loved me. I always knew that. It made up for a lot," she told him frankly. "You did the best you could."

"I hit rock-bottom when I saw you having to dance to the tune of that old coot, Shio Toutosai" Onigumo shook his head with bitter regret. "There was no way I could avoid facing up to how low I'd sunk and how much I'd dragged you down. I leeched off you, off everyone. All I lived for was the next game, the next bet—"

Kagome drew him up short there. "Inuyasha says you've got a job. Tell me about that," she encouraged.

For the past year he had been working as a salesman for a northern confectionery firm. It was now eighteen months since he had last laid a bet. He still attended weekly meetings with other former gamblers.

Kagome told him that the cottage no longer had a sitting tenant. Her father frowned in surprise, and then slowly he smiled. Rather apprehensively, he then admitted that he had met someone he was hoping to marry. He would sell the cottage and put the proceeds towards buying a house. Myrtle, he explained, had some savings of her own, and it was a matter of pride that he should not bring less to the relationship.

Now he was middle-aged, she registered, her father finally wanted the ordinary things that other people wanted.

Security, self-respect, to be loved, appreciated. And wasn't that exactly what she had always wanted for herself? Her father had needed her forgiveness and she had needed to shed her bitter memories. As they talked, her gratitude to Inuyasha for engineering such reconciliation steadily increased. Onigumo had built a new life and she wished him well with her whole heart.

"You've got yourself a good bloke in Inuyasha," her father commented with a nod as he took his leave, "I shouldn't like to cross him, though."

Kagome was mopping her eyes when Inuyasha reappeared. She didn't look at him. "This has been a heck of morning... but I'm really grateful that you found Dad for me. It's like a whole big load of worry has dropped off my shoulders. Tell me, would you have brought us together again if he'd still been down on the skids?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw Inuyasha still. "Not immediately," he confessed honestly. "I would have tried to get him some help first. But he wouldn't have come if he hadn't sorted himself out. He wouldn't have had the courage to face you."

Inuyasha curved a supportive hand round her spine and walked her towards the door. "We have a helicopter to catch."

"Where on earth are we going?"

"Surprise..."

"I thought Dad was my surprise."

"Only part of it." He urged her up a flight of stairs and they emerged onto the roof, where a helicopter waited. Kagome grimaced and gave him a look of reproach which he pretended not to notice.

He held her hand throughout the flight. Kagome was forced to admit that it wasn't so bad.

She was even persuaded to look out of the windows once or twice. But she still closed her eyes and prayed when they started coming in to land.

Inuyasha restored her to solid ground again with careful hands. "You're doing really great," he told her admiringly.

Only then did Kagome open her eyes. She gaped. A hundred yards away stood a very large and imposing nineteenth-century country house surrounded by a gleaming sea of luxury cars. Three other helicopters were parked nearby. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"I did once mention having a house in the country but you were ill at the time," Inuyasha conceded with a wolfish smile. "Welcome to the wedding reception you never had, Mrs Taisho..."

"I beg your pardon?" Kagome prompted unevenly.

"All my relatives and all my friends are waiting to meet you," Inuyasha revealed. "And the advantage of inviting them for lunch is that they all have to go home before dinner. Two weeks ago, the only reason I agreed to hold fire on announcing our marriage was that I hadn't the slightest desire to share you with other people. I wanted you all to myself for a while—"

"All your relatives...all your friends?"

"Kagome...this little celebration has been in the pipeline for two weeks. The invitations went out while we were in Greece." He hesitated and cast her a rueful glance. "I did ask your father to join us but he preferred not to."

Kagome nodded without surprise and wondered absently why they were dawdling so much on their passage towards the house. "Was Dad the something that came up yesterday?"

"I went up to Manchester to see him. That took up quite a few hours and then I came back here for the night. I wanted to check everything was ready for us." Inuyasha stilled her steps altogether, casting an odd, frustrated glance of expectancy up at the sky.

"What's wrong...?"

The whine of an aircraft approaching brought a smile back to Inuyasha's impatient dark features. As a low-flying plane approached over the trees, he banded both arms round Kagome and turned her round. "Look up," he urged.

Kagome's eyes widened. In the wake of the strange trail of pink smoke left by the plane, words appeared to be forming.

"That's an I," Inuyasha informed her helpfully. "And that's an L and an O and a V—"

"Even I can read letters that big!" Kagome snapped.

The words 'I love you' stood there in the sky, picked out in bright pink. Kagome's jaw dropped.

Somewhat pained by this lack of response, Inuyasha breathed, "I wanted you to know that I am proud of my feelings for you...and it was the only way I could think of doing it."

Never in Kagome's wildest dreams would it have occurred to her that Inuyasha would do something so public and so deeply uncool. "You love me?" she whispered weakly.

"You ought to know that by now!" Inuyasha launched in frustration. "I've been trying myself in knots for weeks trying to show you how much I care!"

Kagome surveyed him with eyes brimming with happiness, but was conscious of a very slight sense of female incomprehension. "Inuyasha...couldn't you just say the words?"

"You weren't ready to hear them. You had a very low opinion of me...and, let me tell you, few men would've emerged from reading that written character assassination of yours with much in the way of hope!" Inuyasha asserted with a feeling shudder.

Kagome was aghast. "You found my list—?"

"How could you write all those things about me?"

"There was no name on it, so if you recognized the traits..." Kagome fell silent and studied him with dismayed and sympathetic eyes. "Oh, Inuyasha... you kept quiet all this time, and that must've killed you—"

"I used that list as a blueprint for persuading you that I wasn't the man you imagined I was."

"And you improved so much," Kagome completed rather tactlessly.

With a helpless groan, Inuyasha hauled her close and kissed her with devouring passion. Kagome's impressionable heart went crazy. She submitted to being crushed with alacrity and hugged him tight, finally resting her ebony head down on his broad shoulder as she struggled to catch her breath again. "Oh, dear, I was the tart who thought you were great in bed and that was all...you were playing games with me when you said that, Inuyasha!" she condemned.

"That is really rich...coming from a wife who announced she preferred to be a mistress—"

"Only after being told she would be perfect in that role—"

"Perfect wife, perfect mistress, perfect...you are the love of my life," Inuyasha confessed rather raggedly. "Why the hell did I arrange the reception for today?"

Kagome squinted across the sea of big cars at the house. A lot of faces were looking out of the windows. But she didn't squirm. She threw her head high. Inuyasha loved her. The one and only love of his life? She felt ten feet tall. She would never, ever, no matter how long she lived, tell him how utterly naff that pink trail in the sky had been—particularly not when he was so pleased with himself for having come up with the idea. "I love you too," she confided as they threaded a passage through the parked cars on their way to the impressive front doors that already stood wide for their entrance. "I really don't think I ought to tell you, but it wasn't the new improved you that did the trick entirely. I got sort of irrationally attached to you even before I wrote the list."

"How can you tell me you love me with all these people hovering?" Inuyasha slung in a gritty hiss of reproach, but he smiled and their eyes met and that devastating smile of his grew even more brilliant.

"I want you to meet my wife." Inuyasha announced a ten minutes later, with so much pride and pleasure that Kagome felt her eyes prickle.

A whole host of people lined up to greet them. They were mobbed. At one stage it was something of a surprise to find herself looking down on Shio Toutosai's balding little head, and then meeting his faded, discomfited blue eyes. "I'm sorry," he breathed tightly.

"I made him sorry," his wife, Kaede, said very loudly, and Toutosai flinched and seemed to shrink into himself. "Everyone knows the whole story now. There's no fool like an old

fool."

The older woman shook hands with brisk efficiency and passed on.

Somewhat paralyzed by that encounter, Kagome whispered to Inuyasha, "I feel so sorry for him now."

"Don't you dare...if it hadn't been for Toutosai, we'd have been together three years sooner!" Inuyasha responded without pity.

"I couldn't have coped with you at nineteen."

"I never knew anyone learn to cope with me faster," Inuyasha countered, guiding her through the crush to a quiet corner.

Kagome focused on her friend, Sango, in delighted surprise. Petting Bounce, she sat down beside her. "How did you get here?" she demanded.

"Inuyasha phoned me last night. We travelled down in a limousine this morning. Bounce was most impressed. Now, didn't I tell you that man loved you? Oh, dear, is he listening?" Sango said with comic dismay.

"Your senses are so much more acute than Kagome's," Inuyasha told Sango cheerfully. "To convince her, I had to hire a plane to spell out "I love you" in the sky."

"How did that feel?" Sango asked Kagome eagerly.

"It felt...it felt absolutely fantastic," Kagome swore. "It was so imaginative, so unexpected, so —"

"Naff?" Inuyasha slotted in tautly.

"No, it was the moment I realized that I loved you most." And truthfully it had been, when he had unerringly betrayed to her just how hard he found it to put his pride on the line and say those three little words before she said them.

Lunch was a vast buffet served in the ballroom by uniformed waiters. Kagome sipped champagne and drifted about on an ecstatic cloud with Inuyasha's arm curved possessively round her. She met his aunts and his uncles and his cousins and his second cousins and his third cousins, and all the names just went right over her head.

And then, when the band struck up the music, rising to the role expected of the bridal couple, they circled the floor and the dancing began. Given an excuse to remain constantly within Inuyasha 's hold, Kagome was initially content. Curving herself round him like a vine, she breathed in the hot, familiar scent of his body and inevitably turned weak with longing. "Any sign of anyone leaving yet?" she kept on asking hopefully.

At last a trickle of departures led to a generalized flood. They saw Sango back out to the limo. Then Kagome and Inuyasha mounted the stairs hand in hand at a stately pace.

"When did you realize you were in love with me?" she pressed.

"When you had the chickenpox and I still couldn't wait to take you home."

"But you weren't prepared to admit it—"

"Torture wouldn't have made me confess I was that vulnerable. This is our bedroom." Inuyasha cast wide a door with a flourish.

'"Our" has a warm sound, Kagome savoured. "I still can't believe you love me..."

"You wouldn't have had to wait so long to find out if you had kept quiet on the beach the morning after I got drunk." In exasperation Inuyasha framed her surprised face with loving hands. "I was ready to tell you. Since I was painfully aware that I had got everything wrong, and I was feeling unusually humble, I was planning to go for the sympathy vote...and what did you do?"

"I told you about my godmother's will... I think I'll give my share to Kagura's favorite children's charity." She stared dizzily into golden eyes blazing with love and gave him a glorious smile. "I had to tell you about the will some time, but I was just trying to save face. I didn't want you to realize how much I loved you—"

"You're a total dreamer."

"I'm the love of your life," Kagome reminded him rather smugly as she flicked loose his tie and slid his jacket down off his broad shoulders with the intent air of one unwrapping a wonderful parcel. "And you're the love of mine."

Inuyasha brought her down on the four-poster bed with a husky laugh of amusement. "Let me remind you of what you said in your list. Chauvinistic, bad-tempered, selfish, unromantic, insensitive, domineering—"

"A woman always reserves the right to change her mind." Kagome inserted before he could get really waned up.

Amber eyes were burnished to pure gold as he met her dancing eyes. "You may be gorgeous...but I think it was your mind I fell in love with...all those snappy replies and sneaky moves, agape mou."

"To think I once thought you were cold." Kagome ran a tender loving hand over his chest. "How many children are we going to have?" she asked.

Inuyasha gave her a startled smile of appreciation that turned her heart over and inside out. "You want my baby?"

Kagome nodded. The prospect just made her melt.

"You really are tremendous," Inuyasha breathed hoarsely.

And then he took her readily parted lips with urgent. Speaking hunger and the passion took over, gloriously reaffirming their love for each other.

Ten months later, they had their first child. Kagome gave birth to a baby girl with blue eyes as bright and bossy as her own. Inuyasha took one look at his daughter and he just adored her too.

OOOKKKKK… here it is…. The first story done… but wait! This is not the end, there are more to see with these husband hunters…. Stick around!

XOXO

Sahora


	12. The vengeful husband 1

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

N/A: ok, welcome back to this fic, I'm so glad all of you are here! A couple of point before starts reading this chapter…

First: As I mentioned on the summary, this story is an Inu/ Kag, Kouga/ Ayame ans Shess/ Rin fic. There are 3 different stories. "Married to a mistress" ( Inu/Kag) was one, and it's already over ( for now), " The vengeful husband" is the second one, and is based on Kouga and Ayame. There will be mention of the other characters but it will turn around our wolf friends. The last story will be based on Shess/Rin. They all will be united at the end, but please be patient. =)

I hope all of you stick around till the end.

Now, let's start the chapter! :3

CHAPTER ONE

A slender fragile beauty in a silvery green gown. Translucent skin, a mane of vibrant red hair and spellbinding eyes as green as peridots behind her flirtatious little mask. A hoarse, sexy little voice, sharp enough to strip paint and then sweet enough to make honey taste bitter...

"No names...no pack drill," she had said. "I don't want to know," she had said, when he had tried to identify himself. "After tonight, I'll never see you again. What would be the point?"

No woman had ever said that to Kouga Wolf before. No woman had ever looked on him as a one-night stand. The shock of such treatment had been profound. But her eagerness in his bed had seemed to disprove the dismissive words on her lips...until he'd wakened in the early hours and found his mystery lover gone and the adorata ring gone with her. And then Kouga had simply not been able to credit that some unscrupulous little tart had contrived to rip him off with such insulting ease.

His memory of that disastrous night in Venice almost three years earlier still biting like salt in an open wound, Kouga surveyed the closed file labeled 'Ayame Uno' on his library desk, his chiseled features chillingly cast. With the cool of a self-discipline renowned in the world of international finance, he resisted the temptation to rip open the file like an impatient boy. He had waited a long time for this moment. He could wait a little longer. "It is her this time...you're sure?" he prompted softly.

Even swollen with pride as Kazuo was at finally succeeding in his search, even convinced by the facts that he had to have the right woman, Kazuo still found himself stiffening with uncertainty. Although the woman he had identified matched every slender clue he had started out with, by no stretch of his imagination could he see his famously fastidious and highly sophisticated employer choosing to spend a wild night of passion with the female in that photograph...

"I will only be sure when you have recognized her, sir," Kazuo admitted tautly.

"You're backtracking, Kazuo." with a rueful sigh that signified no great hope of satisfaction, Kouga reached out a deceptively indolent brown hand and flipped open the file to study the picture of the woman on the title page.

As Kouga tensed and a frown grew on his strong dark face, setting his pure bone structure to the cold consistency of granite, Kazuo paled, suddenly convinced that he had made a complete ass of himself. That bedraggled female image sported worn jeans, Wellington boots, a battered rain-hat and a muddy jacket with a long rip in one sleeve. More bag lady than gorgeous seductress.

"I've been too hasty—"

"She's cut off her hair..." his employer interrupted in a low-pitched growl.

After a convulsive swallow, Kazuo breathed tautly, "are you saying that...it is the same woman?"

"Was she got up like this for a fancy dress party?"

"signorina Uno was feeding hens when that was taken," Kazuo supplied apologetically. "It was the best the photographer could manage. She doesn't go out much."

"Hens...?" bemusement pleating his aristocratic ebony brows, Kouga continued to scan the photo with hard, dark deepset eyes. "Yet it is her. Without a doubt, it is her...the devious little thief who turned me over like a professional!"

Ayame Uno had stolen a medieval ring, a museum piece, an irreplaceable heirloom. The Wolf family had been princes since the middle ages. To mark the occasion of the birth of his son, the very first Principe had given his wife, adorata, the magnificent ruby ring. Yet in spite of that rich family heritage, and the considerable value of the jewel, the police had not been informed of the theft. Initially stunned by such an omission, Kazuo had since become less surprised...

According to popular report within the Wolf empire, some very strange things had happened the night of the annual masked ball at the palazzo d'oro. The host had vanished, for one thing. And if it was actually true that giant Kouga Wolf had vanished in order to romance the thief with something as deeply un-cool for a native Venetian as a moonlit gondola tour of the city, Kazuo could perfectly understand why the police had been excluded from the distinctly embarrassing repercussions of that evening. No male would wish to confess to such a cardinal error of judgment.

In spite of the substantial reward which had been dangled like bait in the relevant quarters, the ring had not been seen since. Most probably it had been disposed of in England— secretly acquired by some rich collector content not to question its provenance. Kazuo had been extremely disappointed when the investigator failed to turn up the slightest evidence of Ayame Uno having a previous criminal record.

"Tell me about her..." his employer invited without warning, shutting the file with a decisive snap and thrusting it aside.

Surprised by the instruction, Kazuo breathed in deep. "Ayame Uno lives in a huge old house which has been in her family for many generations. Her financial situation is dire. The house is heavily mortgaged and she is currently behind with the repayments—'

"Who holds the mortgage?" Kouga incised softly.

Kazuo informed him that the mortgage had been taken out a decade earlier with an insurance firm.

"Buy it," Kouga told him equally quietly. "Continue..."

"Locally, the lady is well-respected. However, when the investigator went further a field, he found her late godmother's housekeeper more than willing to dish the dirt."

Kouga's brilliant eyes narrowed, his sensual mouth twisting with distaste. In an abrupt movement, he reopened the file at the photograph again. He surveyed it with renewed fascination. What he could see of her hair suggested a brutal shearing rather than the attentions of a salon. She looked a mess, a total mess, but the glow of that perfect skin and the bewitching clarity of those eyes were unmistakable.

Emerging from his uncharacteristic loss of attention, Kouga discovered that he had also lost the thread of Kazuo's report...

"And if the lady pulls it off, she stands to inherit something in the region of one million pounds sterling," Kazuo concluded impressively.

Kouga studied his most trusted aide. "pull what off?"

"The late signora leeward had three goddaughters... possibly the god-daughters from hell." Kazuo labeled them with rueful amusement. "When it came to the disposing of her worldly goods, what was there to choose between the three? One living with a married man, one an unmarried mother and the other going the same way—and not a wedding ring or even the prospect of one between the lot of them!'

"You've lost me," Kouga admitted with controlled impatience.

"Ayame Uno's rich godmother left everything to her three godchildren on condition that each of them have to find a husband within the year."

"And Ayame is one of those women you described" Kouga finally grasped it, bronzed features freezing into charged stillness."Which?"

"She's the unmarried mother," Kazuo volunteered.

Kouga froze. "When was the child born?"

"Seven months after her trip to Venice. The kid's just over two."

Kouga stared into space, rigidly schooling his dark face to impassivity, but it was a challenge to suppress his sheer outrage at the news. Cristo...she had even been pregnant with another man's child when she slept with him! Well, that was just one more nail in her coffin. Kouga swore in disgust. Whatever was most important to her, he would take from her in punishment. He would teach her what it was like to be deceived and cheated and humiliated. As she, most unforgettably, had taught him...

"As to the identity of the kid's father..." Kazuo continued wryly. "The jury's still out on that one. Apparently the locals believe that the child was fathered by the fiancé, who ditched the lady at the altar. He figures as a rat of the lowest order in their eyes. But the godmother's housekeeper had a very different version of events. She contends that the fiancé was abroad at the time the kid was conceived, and that he took to his heels because he realized that the baby on the way couldn't possibly be his!"

Kouga absorbed that further information in even stonier silence.

"I shouldn't think the lady will remain a single parent for long," Kazuo advanced with conviction. "Not with a million pounds up for grabs. And on page six of the file you will see what I believe she is doing to acquire that money..."

Kouga leafed through the file. "What is this?' he demanded, studying the tiny print of the enclosed newspaper advertisement and its accompanying box number. "I suspect that Ayame Uno is discreetly advertising for a husband to fulfill the terms of that will."

"Advertising?" Kouga echoed in raw disbelief.

"Country woman seeks quiet, well-behaved and domesticated single male without close ties, 25-50, for short-term live-in employment. Absolute confidentiality guaranteed. No time-wasters, please."

"That's not an advertisement for a husband...it's an ad for an emasculated household pet!" Kouga launched with incredulous bite.

"I'm going to have to advertise again," Ayame divulged grimly to Dai as she mucked out the stall of the single elderly occupant in the vast and otherwise horse-free stable yard. she wielded the shovel like an aggressive weapon. Back to square one. She could hardly believe it—and that wretched advertisement had cost an arm and a leg!

Standing by and willing to help, but knowing better than to offer, Dai looked in surprise at her friend. "But what happened to your shortlist of two possibilities? The gardener and the home handyman?"

Ayame slung the attractive thirty-year-old brunette a weary grimace. "Yesterday I phoned one and then the other in an attempt to set up an interview—"

"In which you planned to finally spill the confidential beans that matrimony was the real employment on offer." Dai sighed. "Boy, would I like to have been a fly on the wall when you broke that news!"

"Yes, well...as it turns out, I shan't need to embarrass myself just yet. One had already found a job elsewhere and the other has moved on without leaving a forwarding address. I shouldn't have wasted so much time agonizing over my choice."

"What choice? You only got five replies. Two were obscene and one was weird! The ad was too vague in one way and far too specific in the other. What on earth possessed you to put in "well-behaved and domesticated"? I mean, talk about picky, why don't you? Still, I can't really say I'm sorry that you've drawn a blank," Dai admitted, with the bluntness that made the two women such firm friends.

"Dai..." Ayame groaned.

'"Look, the thought of you being alone in this house with some stranger gives me the shivers!" the brunette confided anxiously. "In any case, since you didn't want to risk admitting in the ad that you were actually looking for a temporary husband, what are the chances that either of those men would have been agreeable to the arrangement you were about to offer?"

Ayame straightened in frustration. "If i'd offered enough money, I bet one of them would have agreed. I need my inheritance, Dai. I don't care what I have to do to get it. I don't care if I have to marry the hunchback of Notre Dame to meet the conditions of Kagura's will!" Ayame admitted with driven honesty. "This house has been in my family for four hundred years—"

"But it's crumbling round your ears and eating you up alive, Ayame. Your father had no right to lay such a burden on you. If he hadn't let Uno's folly get in such a state while he was responsible for it, you wouldn't be facing the half of what you're facing right now!"

Ayame tilted her chin; green eyes alight with stubborn determination. "Dai...as long as I have breath in my body and two hands to work with, the folly will survive so that I can pass it on to Shiori.' pausing to catch her breath from her arduous labor, Ayame glanced at her two-year-old daughter. Seated in a grassy sunlit corner, Shiori was grooming one of her dolls with immense care. Her watching mother's gaze was awash with wondering pride and pleasure.

Shiori had been blessed at birth, Ayame conceded gratefully. Mercifully, she hadn't inherited her mother's ginger hair, myopic eyesight or her nose. Shiori had lustrous black curls and dainty, even features. There was nothing undersized or over-thin about her either. She was a strikingly pretty and feminine little girl. In short, she was already showing all the promise of becoming everything her mother had once so painfully and pointlessly longed to be...

Shiori wouldn't be a wallflower at parties, too blunt-spoken to be flirtatious or appealing, too physically plain to attract attention any other way. Nor would Shiori ever be so full of self-pity that she threw herself into the bed of a complete stranger just to prove that she could attract a man. Pierced to the heart by that painful memory, Ayame paled and guiltily looked away from her child, wondering how the heck she would eventually explain that shameful reality in terms that wouldn't hurt and alienate her daughter.

Some day Shiori would ask her father's name, quite reasonably, perfectly understandably. And what did Ayame have to tell her? Oh, I never got his name because I told him I didn't want it. Even worse, I could well walk past him on the street without recognizing him, because I wasn't wearing my contacts and I'm a little vague as to his actual features. But he had dark eyes, even darker hair, and a wonderful, wonderful voice...

Beneath Dai's frowning gaze, Ayame had turned a beetroot color and had begun studiously studying her booted feet. "what's up?"

"Indigestion," Ayame muttered flatly, and it wasn't a lie. Memories of that nature made her feel queasy and crushed her self-respect flat. She had been a push-over for the first sweet talking playboy she had ever met.

"so it's back to the drawing board as far as the search for a temporary hubby goes, I gather..." releasing her breath in a rueful hiss, Dai studied the younger woman and reluctantly dug an envelope from the pocket of her jeans and extended it. "Here, take it. A late applicant, I assume. It came this morning. The postmark's a London one." To protect Ayame's anonymity, Dai had agreed to put her own name behind the advertisement's box number. All the replies had been sent to the gate lodge which Dai had recently bought from the estate. Ayame was well aware that she was running a risk in advertising to find a husband, but no other prospect had offered. If she was found out, she could be accused of trying to circumvent the conditions of her godmother's will and excluded from inheriting. But what else was she supposed to do? Ayame asked herself in guilty desperation. it was her duty and her responsibility alone to secure Uno's folly for future generations. She could not fail the trust her father had imposed on her at the last.

She had faithfully promised that no matter what the cost she would hold on to the folly. How could she allow four hundred years of family history to slip through her careless fingers? and, even more importantly, only when she contrived to marry would she be in a position to re-employ the estate staff forced to seek work elsewhere after her father's death. In the months since, few had found new jobs. The knowledge that such loyal and committed people were still suffering from her father's financial incompetence weighed even more heavily on her conscience. Tearing the envelope open, Ayame eagerly scanned the brief letter and her bowed shoulders lifted even as she read. "He's not of British birth...and he has experience as a financial advisor—"

"Probably once worked as a bank clerk," Dai slotted in, cynically unimpressed by the claim. A childless divorcee, Dai was comfortably off but had little faith in the reliability of the male sex.

"He's offering references upfront, which is more than anyone else did." Ayame 's state of desperation was betrayed by the optimistic look already blossoming in her expressive eyes. "and he's only thirty-one."

"What nationality?"

In the act of frowning down at the totally illegible signature, Ayame raised her head again. "He doesn't say. He just states that he is healthy and single and that a temporary position with accommodation included would suit him right now—"

"So he's unemployed and broke."

"If he wasn't unemployed and willing to move in, he wouldn't be applying, Dai," Ayame pointed out gently. "It's a reasonable letter. Since he didn't know what the job was, he's sensibly confined himself to giving basic information only."

As she paced the confines of Dai's tiny front room in the gate lodge five days later, Ayame pushed her thick-lenses spectacles up the bridge of her nose, smoothed her hands down over her pleated skirt and twitched at the roll collar of her cotton sweater as if it was choking her.

He would be here in five minutes. And she hadn't even managed to speak to the guy yet! Since he hadn't given her a phone number to contact him, she had had to write back to his London address and, nervous of giving out her own phone number at this stage, she had simply set up an interview and asked him to let her know if the date didn't suit. He had sent a brief note of confirmation, from which she had finally divined that his Christian name appeared to be Kouga, but as for his surname, she would defy a handwriting expert to read that swirling scrawl!

Hearing the roar of a motorbike out on the road, Ayame suppressed her impatience. Kouga was late. Maybe he wasn't going to show. But a minute later the door burst open. Dai poked her head in, her face filled with excitement. "A monster motorbike just drew up...and this absolutely edible hunk of male perfection took off his helmet! It has to be Kouga ...and Ayame, he is gorgeous—"

"He's come on a motorbike?" Ayame interrupted with a look of astonishment.

"You are so stuffy sometimes," Dai censured. "And I bet you a fiver you can't work up the nerve to ask this particular bloke if he'd be prepared to marry you for a fee!"

Ayame was already painfully aware that she had no choice whatsoever on that count. She had to ask. She was praying that Kouga, whoever he was and whatever he was like, would agree. She didn't have the time to re-advertise. Her back was up against the wall. Yesterday she had received a letter from the company that held the mortgage on Uno's folly. They were threatening to repossess the house and, since she already had a big overdraft, the bank would not help without a guarantee that she would in the near future have the funds to settle her obligations.

Ayame winced as the doorbell shrilled. Dai bolted to answer it. Bolted—-yes, that was the only possible word for her friend's indecent eagerness to reach the front door. Face wooden and set, Ayame positioned herself by the fireplace. So he was attractive. Attractive men had huge egos. She grimaced. All she wanted was someone ordinary and unobtrusive, but what she wanted she wouldn't necessarily get.

"signorina Ayame?" she heard an accented drawl question in a tone of what sounded like polite surprise. "No...She's, er, through here, waiting for you," Dai stammered with a dismayingly girlish giggle, and the lounge door was thrust wide.

Blinking rapidly, Ayame was already glued to the spot, a deep frown-line bisecting her brow. That beautiful voice had struck such an eerie chord of familiarity she was transfixed, heart beating so fast she was convinced it might burst. And then mercifully she understood the source of that strange familiarity and shivered, thoroughly spooked. Dear heaven, he was Italian! It was that lyrical accent she had recognized, not the voice. A very tall, dark male, sporting sunglasses and sheathed in motorbike leathers, strode into the small room. I

Involuntarily Ayame simply gaped at him, her every expectation shattered. Black leather accentuated impossibly wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, lean powerful thighs. Indeed the fidelity of fit left little of that overpoweringly masculine physique to the imagination. And the sunglasses lent his dark features an intimidating lack of expression. And yet... and yet as Ayame surveyed him with startled eyes she realized that he shared more than an accent with Shiori 's father. He had also been very tall and well-built. so what? An irritated voice screeched through her blitzed brain. So you're meeting another tall, dark Italian...big deal! The silver-tongued sophisticate who had got her pregnant wouldn't have been caught dead in such clothing. And if she hadn't had such a guilt complex about her wanton behavior in Venice, she wouldn't be feeling this incredibly foolish sense of threatening familiarity, she told herself in complete exasperation. "Please excuse me for continuing to wear my sunglasses. I have been suffering from eye strain...the light, it hurts my eyes," he informed her in a deep, dark drawl that was both well-modulated and unexpectedly quiet.

"Won't you sit down?" Ayame invited, with an uncharacteristically weak motion of one hand as she forced herself almost clumsily down into a seat. But then Ayame was in shock. She had hoped he would be either sensible and serious or weak and biddable. Instead she had been presented with a rampantly macho male who roared up on a motorbike and wore trousers so tight she marveled that he could stand in them, never mind sit down. With what she believed was termed designer stubble on his aggressive jaw line, he looked about as domesticated and well-behaved as a sable-toothed tiger.

"If you will forgive me for saying so...you look at me rather strangely," he remarked, further disconcerting her as he lowered himself down with indolent grace onto the small sofa opposite her.

"Do I remind you of someone, signorina"

Ayame stiffened even more with nervous tension, and she was already sitting rigid-backed in the seat. "Not at all," she asserted with deflating conviction. "Now, since I'm afraid I couldn't read your signature...what is your full name?"

"Let us leave it at Kouga for now. The wording of your ad suggested that the employment on offer could be of a somewhat unusual nature," he drawled softly. "I would like some details before we go any further."

Ayame bristled like a cat stroked the wrong way. She was supposed to be interviewing him, not the other way round!

"After all, you have not given me your real name either," he pointed out in offensively smooth continuance. Ayame 's eyes opened to their fullest extent. "I beg your pardon?"

"Before i came down here, I checked you out. Your surname is Uno, not Ayame, and you do not live here in this cottage; you live in the huge mansion at the top of the driveway," he enumerated with unabashed cool. "You have gone to some trouble to conceal your own identity. Naturally that is a source of concern to me."

Stunned by that little speech, Ayame sprang upright and stared down at him in shaken disbelief, her angry bewilderment unconcealed. "You checked me out?" he lifted a casual brown hand and slowly removed the sunglasses. "The light is dim enough in here..."

He studied her with a curiously expectant quality of intensity. And without warning Ayame found herself staring down into lustrous dark eyes fringed by glossy, spiky black lashes. He had the sort of eyes that packed a powerful punch.

Gorgeous, she thought in helpless reaction, brilliant and dark as night, impenetrably deep and unreadable. With the sunglasses on he had looked as if he might be pretty good-looking, without them he zoomed up the scale to stunningly handsome, in spite of the fact that he badly needed a shave. And she now quite understood that hint of expectancy he betrayed.

This was a guy accustomed to basking in female double takes, appreciative stares and inviting smiles. But Ayame tensed and took an instantaneous step back, her retreat only halted by the armchair she had vacated. Yet the tiny twisting sensation of sudden excitement she had experienced still curled up deep in the pit of her taut stomach, and then pierced her like a knife with sudden shame. Her color heightening, Ayame plotted her path out of the way of the armchair behind her, controlled solely by a need to put as much distance as possible between them.

Throughout that un-choreographed backing away process of hers, she was tracked by narrowed unflinchingly steady dark eyes.

"signorina Uno—"

"Look, you had no right to check me out..." Ayame folded her arms in a defensive movement. "I guaranteed your privacy. Couldn't you have respected mine?"

"Not without some idea of what I might be getting into. It's standard business practice to make enquiries in advance of an interview."

Ayame tore her frustrated gaze from his. Antipathy darted through her in a blinding wave. with difficulty, she held onto her ready temper. Possibly the reminder had been a timely one. It was, after all, a business proposition she intended to make. And this Kouga might think he was clever, but she already knew he had to be as thick as two short planks, didn't she? Only a complete idiot would turn up for an interview with a woman unshaven and dressed like a hell's angel. Financial advisor? In his dreams! Conservative apparel went with such employment.

Bolstered by the belief that he could be no Einstein, and rebuking herself for having been intimidated by something as superficial and unimportant as his physical appearance, Ayame sat down again and linked her small hands tightly together on her lap. "Right, let's get down to business, then..."

The waiting silence lay thick and heavy like a blanket. Settling back into the sofa in a relaxed sprawl of long, seemingly endless limbs, Kouga surveyed her with unutterable tranquility.

Her teeth gritted. Wondering just how long that laid-back attitude would last, Ayame lifted her chin to a challenging angle. "There was a good reason behind the offbeat ad I placed. but before I explain what that reason is, I should mention certain facts in advance. Should you agree to take the position on offer, you would be well paid even though there is no work involved—"

"no work involved?"

Ayame was soothed at receiving the exact response she had anticipated in that interruption. "No work whatsoever," she confirmed. "while you were living in my home, your time would be your own, and at the end of your employment—assuming that you fulfill the terms to my satisfaction—I would also give you a generous bonus."

"So what's the catch?" Kouga prompted very softly. "In return you ask me to do something illegal?"

A mortified flush stained Ayame 's perfect skin. "Of course not," she rebutted tautly. "The "catch", if you choose to call it that, is that you would have to agree to marry me for six months!"

"To...marry you?" Kouga stressed the word with a frown of wondering incredulity as he sat forward on the sofa. "The employment you offer is...marriage?"

"Yes. It's really quite simple. I need a man to go through a wedding ceremony with me and behave like a husband for a minimum of six months," Ayame extended, with the frozen aspect of a woman forcing her to refer to an indecent act.

"Why?"

"Why? That's my business. I don't think you require that information to make a decision," Ayame responded uncomfortably.

Lush black lashes semi-screened his dark eyes. "I don't understand... could you explain it again, signorina," he urged, in a rather dazed undertone.

You certainly couldn't call him mentally agile, Ayame thought ruefully. Having got over the worst, however, she felt stronger, and all embarrassment had left her. He was still sitting there, and why shouldn't he be? If he was as single as he had said he was, he stood to earn a great deal for doing nothing. She repeated what she had already said and, convinced that the financial aspect would be the greatest persuader of all, she mentioned the monthly salary she was prepared to offer and then the sizeable bonus she would advance in return for his continuing discretion about their arrangement after they had parted.

He nodded, and then nodded again more slowly, still focusing with a slight frown on the worn carpet at his feet. Maybe the light was annoying his eyes, Ayame decided, struggling to hold onto her irritation at his torpid reactions. Maybe he was just gob smacked by the concept of being paid to be bone idle. Or maybe he was so shattered by what she had suggested that he hadn't yet worked out how to respond.

"I would, of course, require references," Ayame continued.

"I could not supply references as a husband..."

Ayame drew in a deep breath of restraint. "I'm referring to character references," she said dryly.

"If you wanted a husband, why didn't you place an ad in the personal column?"

"I would have received replies from men interested in a genuine and lasting marriage." Ayame sighed. "It was wiser just to advertise my requirements as a form of employment—"

"Quiet... domesticated... well-behaved."

"I don't want someone who's going to get under my feet or expect me to wait on him hand and foot. Would you say you were self-sufficient?"

"Si..."

"well, then, what do you think?" Ayame demanded impulsively.

"I don't yet know what I think. I wasn't expecting this kind of proposal," he returned gently. "No woman has ever asked me to marry her before."

"I'm not talking about a proper marriage. Obviously we'd separate after the six months was up and get a divorce. By the way, you would also have to sign a pre-nuptial contract," Ayame added, because she needed to safeguard the estate from any claim an estranged husband might legitimately attempt to make. "That isn't negotiable." Kouga rose gracefully upright. "I believe I would need a greater cash inducement to give up my freedom—"

"That's not a problem," Ayame broke in, her tone one of eager reassurance on that point. If he was prepared to consider her proposition, she was keen to accommodate him. "I'm prepared to negotiate. If you agree, I'll double the original bonus I offered."

Disconcertingly, he didn't react to that impulsive offer. Ayame flushed then, feeling more than a little foolish.

Veiled dark eyes surveyed her. "I'll think it over. I'll be in touch."

"The references?"

"I will present them if I decide to accept the...the position." As Kouga framed the last two words a flash of shimmering gold illuminated his dark eyes. Amusement at the sheer desperation she had revealed in her desire to reach agreement with him? Ayame squirmed at the suspicion.

"I need an answer very soon. I have no time to waste."

"I'll give you an answer tomorrow..." he strode to the door and then he hesitated, throwing her a questioning look over one broad masculine shoulder. "It surprises me that you could not persuade a friend to agree to so temporary an arrangement."

Ayame stiffened and colored. "In these particular circumstances, I prefer a stranger."

"A stranger...I can understand that," Kouga completed in a honey-soft and smooth drawl.


	13. The vengeful husband 2

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Two

"So what sort of impression did Kougas make on you?" Dai demanded, minutes later.

"It's not Kougas, it's Kouga... my impression?" Ayame studied her friend with a frowning air of abstraction. "That's the odd thing. I didn't really get a proper impression—at least not one I could hang onto for longer than five seconds," she found herself admitting in belated recognition of the fact. "One minute I thought he was all brawn and no brain, and then the next he would come out with something razor-sharp. And towards the end he was as informative as a brick wall."

"He didn't accuse you of dragging him down here on false pretences? He didn't laugh like a drain? Or even ask if you were pulling his leg?" it was Dai's turn to look confused.

Ayame shook her head reflectively. "He was very low-key in his reactions, businesslike in spite of the way he was dressed. That made it easier for me. I didn't get half as embarrassed as I thought I would."

"Only you could conduct such a weird and loaded interview with a male that gorgeous and not respond on any more personal a level."

"that kind of man leaves me cold." but Ayame's cheeks warmed as she recalled that humiliating moment when she had reacted all too personally to the sheer male magnetism of those dark good looks.

Dai's keen gaze gleamed. "He didn't leave you stone-cold... did he?"

Cursing her betraying fair skin, Ayame strove to continue meeting her friend's eyes levelly. "Dai —"

"Forget it... I can tell a mile off when you're about to lie through your teeth!" Ayame winced.

"Ok...I noticed that Kouga was reasonably fanciable—"

"Reasonably fanciable?" her friend caroled with extravagant incredulity.

"All right." Ayame sighed in rueful surrender. "He was spectacular ...are you satisfied now?"

"Yes. Your indifference to men seriously worries me. Now at least I know that you're still in the land of the living."

Ayame pulled a wry face. "With my level of looks and appeal, indifference is by far the safest bet, believe me."

Dai compressed her lips and thought with real loathing of all the people responsible for ensuring Ayame had such a low opinion of her own attractions. Her cold and critical father, her vain and sarcastic stepmother, not to mention the rejections her unlucky friend had suffered from the opposite sex during her awkward and vulnerable teen years. Being jilted at the altar and left to raise her child alone had completed the damage.

And these days Ayame dressed like a scarecrow and made little effort to socialize. Slowly and surely she was turning into a recluse, although the hours she slaved over that wretched house meant that she didn't know what free time was, Dai conceded grimly. Anyone else confronted with such an immense and thankless challenge would've given up and at least sold the furniture by now, but not Ayame. Ayame would starve sooner than see any more of the folly's treasures go to auction.

"I get really annoyed with you when you talk like that," Dai said truthfully. "If you would only buy some decent clothes and take a little more interest in—"

"Why bother when I'm quite happy as I am?" visibly agitated by the turn the conversation had taken, Ayame glanced hurriedly at her watch and added with a relief couldn't hide, "it's time I picked up Shiori from the playgroup."

As Ayame left the gate lodge, however, that final dialogue traveled with her. Demeaning memories had been roused to fill her thoughts and unsettle her stomach. All over again she saw her one-time fiancé, Houjo, gawping at her chief bridesmaid like a moon sick calf and finally admitting at the eleventh hour that he couldn't go through with the wedding because he had fallen in love with Kagome. And the ultimate insult had to be that her former friend, Kagome, who was so beautiful she could stop traffic, hadn't even wanted Houjo! That devastatingly public rejection had been followed by the Venetian episode, Ayame recalled wretchedly. That, too, had ended in severe humiliation. She had got to play Cinderella for a night.

And then she had got to stand on the Ponte Della Guerra and be stood up like a dumb teenager the following day. She had waited for ages too, and had hit complete rock-bottom when she finally appreciated that prince charming was not going to turn up. Of course another woman, a more experienced and less credulous woman, would have known that that so casually voiced yet so romantic suggestion had been the equivalent of a guy saying he would phone you when he hadn't the slightest intention of doing so, only she hadn't recognized the reality. No, Ayame reflected with a stark shudder of remembrance, she had been much happier since she had given up on all that ghastly embarrassing and confusing man-woman stuff.

And if Kouga, whoever he was, decided to go ahead and accept her proposition, she would soon be able to tune him and his macho motorbike leathers out entirely...

Perspiration beading her brow, Ayame wielded the heavy power-saw with the driven energy of necessity. The ancient kitchen range had an insatiable appetite for wood. Breathing heavily, she stopped to take a break. Even after switching off the saw, her ears still rang with the shattering roar of the petrol-driven motor. With a weary sigh, she bent and began laboriously stacking the logs into the waiting wheelbarrow.

"Ayame...?"

At the sound of that purring, accented drawl, Ayame almost leapt out of her skin, and she jerked round with a muttered exclamation.

Kouga stood several feet away. Her startled green eyes clung to his tall, outrageously masculine physique. Wide shoulders, sleek hips, long, long legs. And he had shaved. One look at the to-die-for features now revealed in all their glory struck Ayame dumb. She wasn't even capable of controlling that reaction. In full daylight, he was so staggeringly handsome. High, chiseled cheekbones, sharp as blades, were dissected by an arrogant but classic nose and embellished by a wide, perfect mouth. Even his skin had that wonderful golden glowing vibrancy of warmer climes...

"Is there something wrong?" an equally shapely ebony brow had now quirked enquiringly.

"You startled me..." heated color drenching her skin as she realized that she had been staring, Ayame dragged her attention from him with considerable difficulty. As her dazed eyes dropped down, she blinked in disbelief at the sight of her cocker spaniels seated silently at his feet like the well trained dogs they unfortunately weren't. Strangers usually provoked Humpf and Bert into a positive frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Instead, her lovable but noisy animals were welded to the spot and throwing Kouga upward pleading doggy glances as if he had cast some weird sort of hypnotic spell over them.

"I wasn't expecting you," Ayame said abruptly.

"I did try the front entrance first..." his deep-pitched sexy drawl petered out as he studied the sizeable stack of wood. "Surely you haven't cut all that on your own?"

Threading an even more self-conscious hand through the damp and wildly curling tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead, she nodded, aware of the incredulity in those piercing dark eyes.

"Are there no men around here?"

"no, I'm the next best thing...but then that's nothing new," Ayame muttered half under her breath, writhing at her own undeniable awkwardness around men and hating him for surprising her when she wasn't psyched up to deal with him.

Forgivably thrown by that odd response, Kouga frowned.

Ayame leapt straight back into speech. "I assumed you would phone—"

"Nobody ever answers your phone."

"I'm outdoors a lot of the time." stripping off her heavy gloves, Ayame flexed small and painfully stiff fingers and averted her scrutiny from him, her unease in his presence pronounced. What on earth was the matter with her? She was behaving like a silly teenager with a crush. "You'd better come inside."

Hurriedly grabbing up an armful of logs, Ayame led the way. The long, cobbled passageway that provided a far from convenient rear entrance to her home was dark and gloomy and flanked by a multitude of closed doors. Innumerable rooms which had once enjoyed specific functions as part of the kitchen quarters now lay unused.

But not for much longer, she reminded herself. When she achieved her dream of opening up the house to the public all those rooms full of their ancient labor intensive equipment would fascinate children.

And she was going to achieve her dream, she told herself feverishly. Surely Kouga wouldn't take the trouble to make a second personal appearance if he intended to say no? She trod into the vast echoing kitchen and knelt down by the big range at the far end.

Opening the door, she thrust a sizeable log into the fuel bed. "Did you come all the way from london again?"

"No, I stayed in Penzance last night."

Ayame was so rigid with nervous tension; she couldn't bring herself to look at him as she breathed tautly, "so what's your answer?"

"Yes. My answer is yes," he murmured with quiet emphasis.

Her strained eyes prickled with sudden tears and she blinked rapidly before slamming shut the door on the range. The relief was so immense she felt quite dizzy for a few seconds. Feeling as if a huge weight had dropped from her shoulders, Ayame scrambled upright and turned, a grateful smile on her now softened face.

"That's great...that's really great. Would you like some coffee?"

Lounging back against the edge of the giant scrubbed pine table, Kouga stared back at her, not a muscle moving in his strong dark face. It was a rather daunting reaction and she swallowed hard, unaware that that shy and spontaneous air of sudden friendliness had disconcerted him.

"Ok...why not?" he agreed, without any expression at all.

Ayame put on the kettle and stole an uneasy glance at him in the taut silence. She didn't know where the tension was coming from, and then she wondered if his brooding silence was a kind of male ego thing. "I suppose this isn't quite the sort of work you were hoping to get," she conceded awkwardly. "But I promise you that you won't regret it. How long have you been unemployed?"

"Unemployed?" he echoed, strong features stiffening.

"Sorry, I just assumed—"

"I have never been employed in the UK."

"Oh..." Ayame nodded slowly. "So how long have you been over here?"

"Long enough..."

Ayame scrutinized that slightly down bent dark glossy head, taking in the faint darkening of color over his sculpted cheekbones. He was embarrassed at his lack of success in the job market, she gathered, and she wished she had been a little less blunt in her questioning.

But then tact had never been her strong point. And when she had interviewed him she had been so wrapped up in her own problems that it hadn't occurred to her that Kouga must have been desperate to find a job to come so far out of London in answer to one small ad.

Furthermore, now that she took a closer look at those leathers of his, she couldn't help but notice that they were pretty worn.

Sudden sympathy swept Ayame. She knew all about being broke and trying to keep up appearances. She had looked down on him for wearing motorbike gear to an interview, but maybe the poor guy didn't have much else to wear. If he hadn't worked since he had arrived in the UK, he certainly couldn't have financed much of a wardrobe. Smart suits cost money.

"I'll give you half your first month's salary in advance," Ayame heard herself say. "As a sort of retainer..."

This time he looked frankly startled.

"You probably think that's very trusting of me, but I tend to take people as I find them. In any case, I don't have a lot of choice but to trust you. If you were to get the chance of another job and decide to back out on me, I'd be in trouble," she said honestly. "How do you like your coffee?"

"Black...two sugars."

Ayame put a pile of biscuits on a rather chipped plate. Setting the two beakers of coffee down on the table, she sat down and reached for the jotter and pencil lying there. "I'd better get some details from you, hadn't I? What is your surname?'

There was a pause, a distinct pause as he sank lithely down opposite her.

"Wolf..." he breathed.

Ayame bent industriously over the jotter. "And Kouga —is that your first and only other name? You see, "I have to get this right for the vicar.'

'Kenji Kouga. Wolf, Kenji Kouga.'

"I think you'd better spell that one." she took down his birth date. Wolf, she was thinking. Why did she have the curious sense that she had come across that name somewhere before? She shook her head. For all she knew Wolf was not a common name in Italy as smith was in England.

"Right," she said then. "I'll contact my solicitor, Mr. Mioga. He's based in Penzance, so you can sign the pre-nuptial contract as soon as you like. Those references you offered...?" from the inside of his jacket he withdrew a somewhat creased envelope. Struggling to keep up a businesslike attitude when she really just wanted to sing and dance round the kitchen with relief, Ayame withdrew the documents. There were two, one with a very impressive letterhead, but both were written in Italian. "I'll hang onto these and study them," she told him, thinking of the old set of foreign language dictionaries in the library. "But I'm sure they'll be fine."

"How soon do you envisage the marriage ceremony taking place?" Kouga enquired.

"Hopefully in about three weeks. It'll be a very quiet wedding," Ayame explained rather stiffly, fixing her attention to the scarred surface of the table, her face turning pale and set. "But as my father died this year that won't surprise anyone. It wouldn't be quite the thing to have a big splash."

"You're not inviting many guests?"

"Actually..." Ayame breathed in deep, plunged into dismal recall of the huge misfired wedding which her father had insisted on staging three years earlier. "Well, actually, I wasn't planning on inviting anybody," she admitted tightly as she rose restively to her feet again. "I'll show you where you'll be staying when you move in, shall I?"

At an infinitely more graceful and leisurely pace, Kouga slid upright and straightened. Ayame watched in helpless fascination. His every movement had such...such style, an unhurried cool that caught the eye. He was so self-possessed, so contained. He was also very reserved. He gave nothing away. Well, would she have preferred a garrulous extrovert who asked a lot of awkward questions? Irritated by her own growing curiosity, Ayame left him to follow her out of the kitchen and tried to concentrate on more important things.

"What did you mean when you said you were the next best thing to a man around here?" Kouga enquired on the way up the grand oak staircase.

"My father wanted a son, not a daughter—at least...not the kind of daughter I turned out to be." as she spoke, Ayame was comparing herself to her stepsister. Taro Uno had been utterly charmed by his second wife's beautiful daughter, Akane. Ayame had looked on in amazement as Akane twisted her cold and censorious parent round her little finger with ease.

"Your mother?"

"She died when I was six. I hardly remember her," Ayame confided ruefully. "My father remarried a few years later. He was desperate to have a male heir but I'm afraid it didn't happen."

She cast open the door of a big dark oak-paneled bedroom, dominated by a giant Elizabethan four-poster. "This will be your room. The bathroom's through that door. I'm afraid we'll have to share it. There isn't another one on this side of the house."

As he glanced round the sparsely furnished and decidedly dusty room, which might have figured in a Tudor time warp, Ayame found herself studying him again. That stunning male profile, the hard, sleek lines of his muscular length.

A tiny frisson of sexual heat tightened her stomach muscles. He strolled with the grace of a leopard over to the high casement window to look out. Sunlight gleamed over his luxuriant black hair. Unexpectedly he turned, dark eyes with the dramatic impact of gold resting on her in cool enquiry.

Caught watching him again, Ayame blushed as hotly as an embarrassed schoolgirl. She was appalled by her own outrageous physical awareness of him, could not comprehend what madness was dredging such responses from her. Whirling round, she walked swiftly back into the corridor.

As he drew level with her she snatched in a deep, sustaining breath and started towards the stairs again. "I'm afraid there are very few modern comforts in the folly, and locally, well, there's even fewer social outlets..." she hesitated uneasily before continuing, "what I'm really trying to say is that if you feel the need to take off for the odd day in search of amusement, I'll understand—"

"Amusement?" Kouga prompted grimly, as if such a concept had never come his way before. Ayame nodded, staring stonily ahead. "I'm one of these people who always say exactly what's on their mind. I live very quietly but I can't reasonably expect you to do the same thing for an entire six months. I'm sure you'll maybe want to go up to London occasionally and—"

"Amuse myself?" Kouga slotted in very dryly.

In spite of her discomfiture, Ayame uttered a strained little laugh. "You can hardly bring a girlfriend here—"

"I do not have a woman in my life," he interrupted, with a strong suggestion of gritted teeth.

"Possibly not at present," Ayame allowed, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He was reacting as if she had grossly insulted him in some way. "But I'm being realistic. You're bound to get bored down here. City slickers do..."

Brilliant eyes black as jet stabbed into her. A line of dark color now lay over his taut cheekbones. "there will not be a woman nor any need for such behavior on my part, I assure you" he imparted icily.

They were descending the stairs when a tiny figure clad in bright red leggings and a yellow t-shirt appeared in the great hall below. "mummy!" Shiori caroled with exuberance.

As her daughter flashed over to eagerly show off a much creased painting, Kouga fell still. Interpreting his silence as astonishment, Ayame flung him an apologetic glance as she lifted her daughter up into her arms. "My daughter, Shiori...I hadn't got around to mentioning her yet," she conceded rather defensively.

Kouga slid up a broad shoulder in an infinitesimal shrug of innate elegance. The advent of a stray cat might have inspired as much interest. Not a male who had any time for children, Ayame gathered, resolving to ensure that her playful and chatty toddler was kept well out of his path.

"Is there anything else you wish to discuss?" Kouga prompted with faint impatience. Ayame stiffened. Minutes later, she had written and passed him the cheque she had promised. He folded the item and tucked it into his inside pocket with complete cool. "I'll drop you a note as soon as I get the date of the ceremony organized. I won't need to see you again before that," she told him.

Kouga printed a phone number on the front of the jotter she had left lying. "If you need to contact me for any other reason, leave a message on that line."

A fortnight later, Ayame unbolted the huge front door of the folly and dragged it open, only to freeze in dismay.

"about time too," Sumiko Uno complained sharply as she swept past, reeking of expensive perfume and irritation, closely followed by her daughter, Akane. Aghast at the un-forewarned descent of her stepmother and her stepsister, Ayame watched with a sinking heart as the tall, beautiful blonde duo stalked ahead of her into the drawing room.

She hadn't laid eyes on either woman since they had moved out after her father's funeral, eager to leave the privations of country life behind them and return to city life. The discovery that Ayame could not be forced to sell the folly and share the proceeds with them had led to a strained parting of the ways. Although Taro Uno had generously provided for his widow, and Sumiko was a wealthy woman in her own right, her stepmother had been far from satisfied.

Sumiko cast an outraged look. "Don't you think you should've told me that you were getting married?" she demanded as she took up a painfully familiar bullying stance at the fireplace. "Can you imagine how I felt when a friend called me to ask who you were marrying and I had to confess my ignorance? How dare you embarrass me like that?"

Ayame was very tense, her tummy muscles knotting, up while she wondered how on earth the older woman had discovered her plans. The vicar's wife could be a bit of a gossip, she conceded, and Sumiko still had friends locally. No doubt that was how word had traveled farther a field at such speed. "I'm sorry...I would've informed you after the wedding—"

Sumiko's scornful blue eyes raked over the younger woman. "But of course, when it's safely over. You're terrified that your bridegroom will bolt last minute, like Houjo did!" at that unpleasant and needless reminder, which was painfully apt, the embarrassed color drained from Ayame 's taut cheekbones. "I—"

"Just when I thought you must finally be coming to your senses and accepting the need to sell this white elephant of a house, you suddenly decide to get married," Sumiko condemned with stark resentment. "Is he even presentable?"

"With all this heavy secrecy, it's my bet that the groom is totally un-presentable...one of the estate workers?" Akane suggested, with a disdainful little shudder of snobbish distaste.

"You're not pregnant again, are you?" Sumiko treated Ayame to a withering and accusing appraisal. "That's what people are going to think. And I refuse to have my acquaintances view me as some sort of wicked stepmother! So you'll have to pay for a proper wedding reception and I'll act as your hostess."

"I'm afraid I haven't got the money for that," Ayame admitted tightly.

"What about him?" Akane pressed instantaneously.

Ayame flushed and looked away.

"Penniless, I suppose." reaching that conclusion, Sumiko exchanged a covert look of relief and satisfaction with her daughter. "I do hope he's aware that when you go bust here, we're entitled to a slice of whatever is left."

"I'm not planning to go bust," Ayame breathed, her taut fingers clenching in on themselves.

"I'm just dying to meet this character." Akane giggled. "Who is he?"

"His name's Kouga —"

"What kind of a name is that?" her stepmother demanded.

"He's Italian," Ayame confided grudgingly,

"an immigrant?" Akane squealed, as if that was the funniest thing she had ever heard. "I do hope he's not marrying you just to get a British passport!"

"I'll throw a small engagement party for you this weekend in Truro," Sumiko announced grandly with a glacial smile. "I will not have people say that I didn't at least try to do my duty by my late husband's child."

"That's very kind of you," Ayame mumbled, after a staggered pause at the fact that Sumiko was prepared to make so much effort on her behalf. "But—"

"No buts, Ayame. Everyone knows how eccentric you are, but I will not allow you to embarrass me in front of my friends. I will expect you and your fiancé at eight on Friday, both of you suitably dressed. And if he's as hopeless as you are in polite company, tell him to keep his mouth shut and just smile."

Her expectations voiced, Sumiko was already sweeping out to the hall. Ayame unfroze and sped after her. "But Kouga... Kouga's got other arrangements for that night!" she lied in a frantic rush.

"Saturday, then," Sumiko decreed instead.

Ayame's tremulous lips sealed again. How could she refuse to produce her supposed fiancé without giving the impression that there was something most peculiar about their relationship? She should never have practiced such secrecy, never have surrendered to her own shrinking reluctance to make any form of public appearance with a man in tow. In her position, she couldn't afford to arouse suspicion that there was anything strange about her forthcoming marriage.

"I'm so glad you've finally found yourself a man." Akane dealt her a pitying look of superiority. "What does he do for a living?"

Ayame hesitated. She just couldn't bring herself to admit that Kouga was unemployed. "He...he works in a bank."

"A clerk...how sweet. love blossomed over the counter, did it?" utterly drained, and annoyed that she had allowed her stepmother to reduce her yet again to a state of dumbstruck inadequacy, Ayame stood as the two women climbed into their sleek, expensive BMW and drove off without further ado.

"Kouga, haven't you got any of my other messages? I realize that this is terribly short notice, but I do really need you to show up with me at this party in Truro...er...our engagement party," Ayame stated apologetically to the answering machine which greeted her for the frustrating fourth time at the London number he had left with her.

"This is an emergency. Saturday night at eight. Could you get in touch, please?"

"The toad's done a bunk on you with that cheque!" Dai groaned in despair. "I don't know why you agreed to this party anyway. Sumiko and Akane have to be up to something. They've never done you a favor in their lives. And if Kouga fails to show up, those two witches will have a terrific laugh at your expense!"

"There's still twenty-four hours to go. I'm sure I'll hear from him soon," Ayame muttered fiercely, refusing to give up hope as she hugged Shiori, grateful for the comforting warmth of her sturdy little body next to her own.

"Ayame...you have written to him as well. He is obviously not at home and if he is home, he's ignoring you—"

"I don't think he's like that, Dai," Ayame objected, suddenly feeling more than a little irritated with her friend for running Kouga down and forecasting the worst. From what she had contrived to roughly translate of her future husband's references, one of which was persuasively written by a high court judge, she was dealing with a male of considerable integrity and sterling character.

Late that night the frustratingly silent phone finally rang and Ayame raced like a maniac to answer it. "Yes?" she gasped with breathless hope into the receiver.

"Kouga... I got your messages this evening—all of them."

"Oh, thank heaven...thank heaven!" just hearing the intensely welcome sound of that deep, dark accented drawl, Ayame went weak at the knees. "I was starting to think I was going to have to ring my stepmother and say you'd come down with some sudden illness! She would've been absolutely furious. We've never been close, and I certainly didn't want this wretched party, but it is pretty decent of her to offer, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid we have one slight problem to overcome," Kouga slotted softly into that flood of relieved explanation. "I'm calling from italy."

"Italy...?" Ayame blinked rapidly, thoroughly thrown by the announcement. "It-Italy?" she stammered in horror.

"But naturally I will do my utmost to get back in time for the party," Kouga assured her in a tone of cool assurance.

Ayame sighed heavily then, unsurprised by his coolness. What right did she have to muck up his arrangements? This whole mess wasn't his fault, it was hers. After all, she had told him she wouldn't need to see him again before the wedding. Obviously he had used the money she had given him to travel home and see his family.

"I'm really sorry about this," she said tiredly, the stress of several sleepless nights edging her voice. "Look, can you make it?"

"With the best will in the world, not to the party before nine in the evening...unless you want to meet me there?" he suggested.

Aghast at the idea of arriving alone, Ayame uttered an instant negative.

"Then offer my apologies to your stepmother. I'll come and pick you up."

Ayame told herself that she was incredibly lucky that Kouga was willing to come back from Italy to attend the party at such short notice. "I really appreciate this...look, you can stay here on Saturday night," she offered gratefully. "I'll make up the bed for you."

"That's extraordinarily kind of you, Ayame," Kouga drawled smoothly.

SO… here I am again… did you all miss me? (I'm in a good mood, what can I say? XD) I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I will be posting the next one soon enough, let me know what do you think about the story so far, ok? =3

Take care people!

XOXO

Sahora.


	14. The vengeful husband 3

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Three.

Shiori was spending the night with Dai in the gatehouse. Returning to the folly to nervously await Kouga's arrival, Ayame caught an unsought glimpse of her reflection in the giant mirror in the echoing hall...

And suddenly she was wishing she had spent money she could ill afford on a new outfit. The brown dress hung loose round her hips and flapped to an indeterminate length below her knees. The ruffled neckline, once chosen to conceal the embarrassing smallness of her breasts, looked fussy and old-fashioned. She was much more comfortable in trousers— never had had much luck in choosing clothes that flattered her slight and diminutive frame...

And in the back of her wardrobe the green designer evening dress which had been Kagome's wedding present three years earlier still hung, complete with shoes and delicate little beaded bag. Kagome, no longer a friend and always rather too reserved and too confident of her feminine attraction for Ayame to feel quite comfortable in her radius. As for the dress, Ayame hadn't looked near it once since her return from Venice. She needed no reminder of that night of explosive passion in a stranger's arms. Yet somehow she still hadn't been able to bring herself to dispose of that exquisite gown which had lent her the miraculous illusion of beauty for a few brief hours.

The Victorian bell-pull shrieked complaint in the piercing silence, springing Ayame out of a past that still felt all too recent and all too wounding. In haste, she yanked open the heavy door. There she stopped dead at the sight of Kouga, her witch-green eyes widening to their fullest extent in unconcealed surprise.

He was wearing a supremely elegant black dinner jacket when she hadn't dared even to ask if he possessed such an article. And there he stood, proud black head high, strong dark face assured, one lean brown hand negligently thrust into the pocket of narrow black trousers to tighten them over his lean hips and long powerful thighs, his beautifully tailored jacket parted to reveal a pristine white pleated dress shirt. He looked so incredibly sophisticated and gorgeous he stole the breath from Ayame 's convulsing throat.

"Gosh, you hired evening dress," she mumbled, relocating her vocal cords with difficulty.

Kouga ran brilliant dark eyes over her, a distinct frown line drawing together his ebony brows. "possibly i'm slightly over-dressed for the occasion?"

"No...No...Not at all." never more self-conscious than when her personal appearance was under scrutiny, Ayame flushed to the roots of her hair. Her attention abruptly fell on the glossy scarlet Porsche sitting parked beside the ancient land rover which was her only means of transport. "Where on earth did you get that car?" she gasped helplessly.

"It's on loan."

Slowly, Ayame shook her curly red head. It would be madness to turn up in an expensive car and give a false impression of Kouga 's standing in the world. Sumiko would ask five hundred questions and soon penetrate the truth. Then Kouga, who could only have borrowed the car for her benefit—and she couldn't help but be touched by that realization —would end up feeling cut off. "I would really love to roar up in the Porsche, but it would be wiser to use the land rover," she told him in some disappointment.

"Dio mio... you are joking, of course." Kouga surveyed the rusting and battered four-wheel drive with outright incredulity. "it's a wreck."

Ayame opened the door of the land rover. "I do know what I'm talking about, Kouga," she warned. "If we show up in the Porsche, my stepmother will get entirely the wrong idea and decide that you're loaded. If we're anything less than honest, we'll both be left sitting with egg on our faces. We want to blend in, not create comment, and that car must be worth about thirty thousand—"

"Seventy."

"Seventy thousand pounds?" Ayame broke in, her disbelief writ large in her shaken face.

"And some change," Kouga completed drily.

"Wish I had a friend willing to trust me with a car like that! We'll park the land rover out on the road and run away from it fast,"

Ayame promised, worriedly examining her watch and then climbing into the driver's seat to forestall further argument. "I'd let you drive, but this old girl has a number of idiosyncrasies which might irritate you."

"This is ridiculous," Kouga swung into the tatty passenger seat with pronounced reluctance, his classic profile hard as a granite cliff in winter.

As she stole a second glance at that hawkish masculine profile, Ayame found herself thinking that he had a kind of heathcliffish rough edge when he was angry.

And he was definitely angry, and she didn't mind in the slightest. It made him seem far more human. Posh cars and men and their egos, she reflected with sudden good cheer. Even she understood that basic connection. "Believe me, you're about to cause enough of a stir tonight. You're very good-looking..."

"Am I really?" Kouga prompted rather flatly.

"Oh, come on, no false modesty. I bet you've been breaking hearts from the edge of the cradle!" Ayame riposted with a rueful sound of amusement.

"You're very frank."

"In that garb you look like you just strolled in off a movie set," Ayame reeled off, trying to work herself up to giving the little speech she had planned. "Do you think you could contrive to act like you're keen on me tonight? No...No, don't say anything," she urged with a distinctly embarrassed laugh. "It's just that nobody can smell a rat faster than Sumiko or Akane, and you are not at all what they are primed to expect."

"What are they expecting?"

"Some ordinary boring guy who works in a bank."

"Where do you get the idea that bankers are boring?"

"My bank manager could bore for Britain. Every time I walk into his office, he acts like I'm there to steal from him. That man is just such a pessimist," Ayame rattled on, grateful to have got over the hint about him acting keen without further discussion. It was so unbelievably embarrassing to have to ask a man to put on such pretence.

"When he tells me the size of my overdraft, he even reads out the pence owing to make me squirm—'

"You have an overdraft?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds. The day we get married, I will have some really good news for my bank manager...at least I hope he thinks its good news, and loosens the purse-strings a little." she shot him an apprehensive glance, wishing she hadn't allowed nervous tension to tempt her into such dangerous candor.

"Don't worry, if the worst comes to the worst, I could always sell something to keep the bank quiet. I made a commitment to you and I won't let you down."

"I'm impressed. Tell me, have you thought of a cover story for this evening?" Kouga enquired with some satire.

"cover story?"

"Where and how we met, et cetera, et cetera."

"Of course," she said in some surprise. "We'll say we met in London. I haven't been there in over a year, but they're not likely to know that. I want to give the impression that we've plunged into one of those sudden whirlwind romances and then, when we split up, nobody will be the slightest bit surprised."

"I see you're wearing a ring."

"It's on loan, like your Porsche. We can't act engaged without a ring." Ayame had borrowed the diamond dress ring from Dia for the evening, and her finger had been crooked ever since it went on because it was a size too big and she was totally terrified of losing it.

"Don't you think you ought to fill me in on a few background details on your family? My younger sister is the only close relative I have," he revealed. "She's a student."

"Oh...right. My stepmother, Sumiko, was first married to a wealthy businessman with one foot in the grave. They had a daughter, Akane, who's a model," she shared. "Sumiko married my father for social position; he married her in the hope of having a son. Dad was always very tight with money, but Sumiko and Akane could squeeze juice out of a dehydrated lemon. He was extremely generous to them. That's one of the reasons the estate is in such a mess...I inherited the mess and a load of death duties."

"Very succinct," Kouga responded with a slight catch in his voice.

"Sumiko and Akane are frantic snobs. They spend the summer in Truro and the rest of the year in their London apartment. Sumiko doesn't like me but she loves throwing parties, and she is very, very conscious of what other people think."

"Are you?"

'Good heavens, no, as an unmarried mother, I can hardly afford to be!"

"I think I should at least know the name of the father of your child," Kouga remarked. The silence in the car became electric. Ayame accelerated down the road, small hands clenching the steering wheel tightly. "On that point, I'm afraid I've never gratified anyone's curiosity," she said stiffly, and after that uncompromising snub the silence lasted all the way to Truro.

Some distance from her stepmother's large detached home, which was set within its own landscaped grounds on the outskirts of town, Ayame nudged her vehicle into a space. And only with difficulty they walked up the sweeping drive and Ayame's heart sank as she took in the number of cars already parked. "I think there's going to be a lot more people here than I was led to expect. If anyone asks too many probing questions, pretend your English is lousy," she advised nervously.

"I believe I will cope." Kouga curved a confident hand over her tense spine. Her flesh tingled below the thin fabric of her dress and she shivered. He bent his glossy dark head down almost to her level, quite a feat with the difference in their heights. The faint scent of some citrus-based lotion flared Ayame's sensitive nostrils. Her breath tripping in her throat, she collided with deep, dark flashing eyes and her stomach turned a shaken somersault in reaction.

"Per meraviglia..." Kouga breathed with deflating cool and impatience. "Will you at least smile as if you're happy? And stop hunching your shoulders like that. walk tall!" plunged back to harsh reality with a jolt, her color considerably heightened,

Ayame might have made a pithy retort had not Sumiko's housekeeper swept open the door for their entrance. and entrance it certainly was. Sumiko and Akane were in the hall, chatting in a group. Their eyes flew to Ayame, and then straight past her to the tall, spectacularly noticeable male by her side. Her stepmother and her stepsister stilled in astonishment and simply stared. suddenly Ayame was wickedly amused. Kouga was undeniably presentable. How unexpectedly sweet it was to surprise the two women whose constant criticisms and cutting comments had made her teenage years such a misery. retaining that light hold on her, Kouga carried her forward.

"Ayame... Kouga," Sumiko said rather stiltedly.

After waiting in vain for Ayame to make an introduction, Kouga advanced a hand and murmured calmly, "Kouga Wolf, Mrs. Uno...I'm delighted to meet you at last."

"Sumiko, please," her stepmother gushed.

Akane hovered in a revealing little slip dress, her beautiful face etched with a rigid smile while her pale blue eyes ran over Kouga as if he was a large piece of her own lost property.

"I'm surprised...you don't look remotely like Houjo,' she remarked." I was so sure you'd be horsy and hearty. Ayame always did go for the outdoor type."

"Houjo?" Kouga queried.

"Oh, dear, I do hope I haven't been indiscreet," Akane murmured with a little moue of fake dismay. "Sorry, but I naturally assumed you would know that Ayame was engaged once before—"

"Left at the altar too. A ghastly business altogether. That's why it's so wonderful to see you happy now, Ayame!" Sumiko continued.

Ayame cringed as if her dress had fallen off in public, unable to look anywhere near Kouga to see how he was reacting to this humiliating information. Her stepmother took advantage of her disconcertion to rest a welcoming hand on Kouga's sleeve and neatly impose herself between them.

"Oh, do let us see the ring," Akane trilled.

Ayame extended her hand. An insincere chorus of compliments followed. They moved into a large reception room which was filled to the gills with chattering, elegantly dressed people. Sumiko turned to address Kouga in a confidential aside. "I'm really hoping that marriage will give Ayame something more to think about than that pile of bricks and mortar she's so obsessively attached to. What do you think of Uno's folly, Kouga?'

"It's Ayame's home and of obvious historic interest—"

"But such a dreadful ceaseless drain on one's financial resources, and a simply huge responsibility. You'll soon find that out," Sumiko warned him feelingly. "Worry drove my poor husband to an early death. It's always the same with these old families. Land-rich, cash-poor. Taro was almost as stubborn as Ayame, but I don't think he ever dreamt that she would go to such nonsensical lengths to try and hang on to the estate—"

"I don't think we need to discuss this right now," Ayame broke in tautly.

"It has to be said, darling, and your fiancé is part of the family now," her stepmother pointed out loftily. "After all, I'm only thinking of your future, and Kouga does have a right to know what he's getting into. No doubt you've given him a very rosy picture, and really that's not very fair—"

"Not at all. I have an excellent understanding of how matters stand on the estate," Kouga inserted with smiling calm as he eased away from the older woman and extended a hand to Ayame, closing long fingers over hers to tug her close again, as if he couldn't quite bear to be physically separated from her.

"That's right. You work in the financial field," Akane commented with a look of amusement. "I can hardly believe you're only a bank clerk..."

"Neither can I. Ayame...what have you been telling this family of yours?" Kouga scolded with a husky laugh of amusement. "Pressure of work persuaded me to take what you might call a sabbatical here in the UK. Meeting Ayame, a woman so very much after my own heart, was a quite unexpected bonus.'

"How on earth did you meet?"

"I'm not sure I should tell you..." Kouga responded in a teasing undertone.

"Feel free," Ayame encouraged, already staggered by the ease with which he was entertaining and dealing with Sumiko and Akane. Yet he had been so very, very quiet with her. But then why was she surprised at that? Her soft mouth tightened. Here he was with two lovely, admiring women hanging on his very word; quite naturally he was opening up and no longer either bored or impatient.

'Ok. It happened in London. She reversed into my car and then got out and shouted at me. I really appreciate a woman with that much nerve!" Kouga divulged playfully, and Ayame's bright head flew up in shock. "You do every thing behind the wheel at such frantic speed, don't you, cara mia? I wanted to strangle her, and then I wanted to kiss her..."

"Which did you do?" Ayame heard herself prompt, unnerved by his sheer inventiveness.

"I believe some things should remain private..." to accompany that low-pitched and sensually suggestive murmur, Kouga ran a long brown forefinger along her delicate jawbone in a glancing caress.

Ayame gazed up at him, all hot pink and overpowered, every muscle in her slender length tensing. Her tender flesh stung in the wake of that easy touch, leaving her maddeningly, insanely aware of his powerful masculinity.

"To think I used to believe my little stepsister was painfully shy," Akane breathed, fascinated against her will by this show of intimacy.

"Hardly, when she's already the mother of a noisy toddler," Sumiko put in cuttingly. "do you like children, Kouga?'

"I adore them," he drawled, with positive fervor.

"How wonderful," Sumiko said rather weakly, having shot her last bitchy bolt and found him impregnable. "Let me introduce you to our guests, Kouga. Don't be so possessive, Ayame. Do let go of the poor man for a second."

Ayame yanked her hand from Kouga's sleeve. She hadn't even realized she had been hanging onto him. Feeling slightly disorientated, she watched as he deftly reached for the glasses of champagne offered by one of the catering staff.

She studied those lean brown hands, the beautifully shaped long fingers and polished nails. She recalled the smoothness of that fingertip dancing along her oversensitive jawbone, sending tiny little tremors down her rigid spine with an innate sensuality that mesmerized. And for the shocking space of one crashing heartbeat, as she met those astonishing dark golden eyes in concert, there had been nobody and nothing else in the room for her.

"You're not making much effort, are you?" Kouga gritted in her ear.

"I never challenge Sumiko if I can help it," she whispered back. "She fights back with my most embarrassing moments. I learnt that lesson years ago."

"Strange...you didn't strike me as a woman who lies down to get kicked."

Ayame flinched at that damning retaliation. "Excuse me," she muttered, and hurried off into the cool of the less crowded hall.

"You won't hold onto that guy for ten seconds," a sharp voice forecast nastily from the rear. "I can't think what he imagines he sees in you, but he'll soon find out he's made a big mistake."

Ayame swung round to face her stepsister. "Time will no doubt tell."

"Kouga 's not even your type," Akane snapped resentfully. "How long do you think you're likely to hold off the opposition? He doesn't look dirt-poor to me either. I know clothes, and what he's wearing did not come out of any charity shop."

"Kouga likes to dress well." Ayame shrugged.

"A peacock with a dull little peahen fluttering in his wake?" Akane sneered. "He'll soon be out looking for more excitement. No, if there's one thing I'm convinced of now that I've seen him, it's that he's playing a double game. It has to be the British passport he's after...why else would he be marrying you?"

Why else? Ayame repeated inwardly as Akane stalked off again. What a huge laugh Sumiko and Akane would have were they ever to discover that Kouga was no more than a somewhat unusual paid employee, prepared to act out a masquerade for six months. And every word her stepsister had spoken was painfully true. In the normal way of things a male of Kouga's ilk would not have looked at her twice.

"Ayame..." Kouga was poised several feet away, a slanting smile for show on his beautiful mouth and exasperation glittering in his deep-set dark eyes. "I wondered where you had got to."

He could act. Dear heaven, but he could act; Ayame found herself acknowledging over the next few hours. He kept her beside him, dragged her into the conversation and paid her every possible attention. Yet increasingly Ayame became more occupied in watching and listening to him.

In vain did she strive to recapture the image of the far from chatty male in motorbike leathers. For Kouga Wolf appeared to be a chameleon. With the donning of that dinner jacket, he appeared to have slid effortlessly into a new persona.

Now she saw a male possessed of a startling degree of sophistication and supremely at his ease in social company. He was adroit at sidestepping too personal enquiries. He was cool as ice, extremely witty and, she began to think, almost frighteningly clever. And other people were equally impressed. He gathered a crowd. Far from blending in, Kouga commanded attention.

At one in the morning, he walked her into the conservatory, where several couples were dancing, and complained, "you've been incredibly quiet."

"And you're surprised?" Ayame stared up at him and stepped back. In the dim light, his lean, dark face had a saturnine quality. Brilliant eyes raked over her as keen and sharp as laser beams. "You're like Jekyll and Hyde. I feel like I don't know you at all—"

"You don't," Kouga agreed.

"And yet you don't quite fit in here either," she murmured uncertainly, speaking her thoughts out loud and yet unable to properly put them together. "You stand out too much somehow."

"That's your imagination talking," Kouga asserted with a smoky laugh as he encircled her with his arms.

He curved his palm to the base of her spine and drew her close. Her breasts rubbed against his shirt-front. A current of heat darted through her and she felt her nipples spring into murderously tight and prominent buds. She went rigid with discomfiture. "Relax," he urged from above her head. "Sumiko is watching. We're supposed to be lovers, not strangers..."

The indefinable scent of him engulfed her. Clean and warm and very male. She quivered, struggling to loosen her taut muscles and shamefully aware of every slight movement of his big, powerful body. She wanted to sink in to the hard masculinity of him, but she held herself back, and in so doing missed a step. To compensate, he had to bring her even closer.

"I'm not a great dancer," she muttered in a mortified apology.

"dio mio... you move like air in my arms," he countered.

And in his arms, amazingly, she did, absorb as one into the animal grace and natural rhythm with which he whirled her round the floor. It was like flying, she thought dreamily, and the reflection could only rekindle a fairy tale memory of dancing on a balcony high above the Grand Canal in Venice. No wrong steps, no awkwardness, no need even for conversation—just the sheer joy of moving in perfect synchronization with the music.

"You dance like a dream," she whispered breathlessly in the split second after the music stopped, and she found herself as someone unwilling to awake from that dream, plastered as surely as melted cheese on toast to every abrasive angle of his lean, hard body.

Somehow her arms had crept up round his neck, and her fingers were flirting deliciously with his thick silky black hair. Unnaturally still now, she gazed up at him, green eyes huge pools of growing confusion. Dear heaven, those eyes of his. Even semi-screened with luxuriant black lashes, their impact was animal direct and splintering sensual.

As his arrogant dark head lowered, her breath feathered in her throat. But she was still stunned when he actually kissed her. He parted her lips with his and took her soft mouth with a driving, hungry assurance that blistered through every shocked atom of her being with the efficiency of a lightning bolt. In the very act of detaching her fingers from his hair she clung instead, clung to stay upright, vaguely attached to planet earth even though she was no longer aware of its existence.

Heat engulfed her sensation-starved body, swelling her breasts, pinching her nipples into distended prominence and sending a flash-flood of fire cascading down between her quivering thighs. As his tongue searched out the yielding tender sensitivity of her mouth, raw excitement scorched to such heights inside her she was convinced she was burning alive.

Kouga lifted his hips from hers, surveyed her blitzed expression and dealt her a curiously hard but amused look. "Time to leave," he informed her lazily. "I believe we've played our part well enough to satisfy."

As Kouga spun her under the shelter of one seemingly possessive arm and walked her off the floor, Ayame was in shock. Her legs no longer felt as if they belonged to the rest of her, and she was still struggling to breath at a normal rate. In the aftermath of that passionate kiss she was a prey to conflicting and powerful reactions, the craziest of which was the momentary insane conviction that Kouga and Shiori's father could only be one and the same man!

Oh, dear heaven, how could she have forgotten herself to that extent? And the answer came back. He kissed like Shiori's father. Earthquake-force seduction. Smooth as glass. Going for the kill like a hit man, faster on his feet than a jump-jet. She was devastated by the completeness of her own surrender, and utterly dumbfounded by that weird sense of the familiar which afflicted her, that crazy paranoiac sense of deja vu...

For her Venetian lover had known nothing about her and could never have discovered her identity. Her secrecy that night had been more than a game she'd played to tantalize. She had been honestly afraid that reality would destroy the magic. After all, he had been attracted by a woman who didn't really exist. And his uninterest in further contact had been more than adequately proven when he'd left her standing on the Ponte Della Guerra the following day!

Yet only he and Kouga had ever had such an effect on her, awakening a shameless brand of instant overpowering lust that sent every nerve-ending and hormone into overdrive and paid not the slightest heed to self-control or moral restraint. She breathed in deep to steady herself.

Maybe all Italian men learned to kiss like that in their teens, she told herself grimly. Maybe she was just a complete push-over for Italian men—at least those of the tall, dark, well-built and sensationally desirable variety. Maybe living like a nun and refusing to recognize that she might have physical needs had made her a degradingly easy mark for any male with the right sensual technique.

But what was technique without chemistry? She asked herself doggedly. It was pathetic for her to try and deny one minute longer that she was wildly, dangerously attracted to Kouga Wolf. For what pride had refused to face head-on, her own body had just proved with mortifying eagerness.

As Kouga thanked her stepmother for the party, Sumiko gave Ayame's hot cheeks a frozen look while Akane surveyed her stepsister as if she had just witnessed a poor, defenseless man being brutally attacked by a sexually starved woman. Ayame's farewells were incoherent and brief.

The night air hit her like a rejuvenating bucket of cold water. "We've played our part well enough to satisfy," Kouga had said, only minutes earlier. At that recollection Ayame now paled and stiffened, as if she had been slapped in the face.

Naturally that kiss had simply been part of the masquerade. He had been acting. Acting as if he was attracted to her, in love with her, on the very brink of marrying her. Oh, dear heaven, had he guessed? Did he for one moment suspect that she hadn't been acting? How much could a man tell from one kiss? As kisses went, her response had been downright encouraging. Her self-respect cowered at that acknowledgement.

"That went off ok," Kouga drawled with distinct satisfaction.

"yes, you were marvelous," Ayame agreed, struggling to sound breezy, approving and grateful, and instead sounding as if each individual word had been wrenched from her at gun-point. "The kiss was a real bull's-eye clincher too. Strikes me you could make a fortune as a gigolo!"

With a forced laugh, she trod ahead of him, valiantly fighting to control her growing sense of writhing mortification "Say that again"

Stalking rigid-backed down the pavement, Ayame slung another not very convincing laugh over her shoulder. "Well, you've got everything going for you in that line," she told him with determined humor. "The look, the charm, the patter, the screen-kiss technique. If I was some fading lonely lady with nothing but my money to keep me warm, I would've been swept off my feet in there!"

Without warning, a shockingly powerful hand linked forcibly with hers and pulled her round to face him again. Startled, Ayame looked up and clashed with blazing golden eyes as enervating as a ten-ton truck bearing down on her shrinking length.

"porca miseria!" Kouga growled in outrage. "You compare me to a gigolo?" genuinely taken aback by that reaction, Ayame gawped at him. And then the penny dropped. Considering the monetary aspect of their private arrangement, her lack of tact now left her stricken. "Oh, no, I never thought... I mean, I really didn't mean—"

"That I am a man who would sell himself for money?" Kouga incised in a raw tone that told her he took himself very seriously.

Ayame was so appalled by her own thoughtlessness that her hand fluttered up between them to pluck apologetically at his lapel and then smooth it down again. "Kouga... honestly, I was just trying to be funny—"

"Ha...ha," Kouga breathed crushingly. "Give me the car keys."

"The—?"

"You've had too much champagne."

Ayame had had only a single glass. But out of guilt over her undiplomatic tongue, she handed over the keys. He swung into the driver's seat.

"You'll need directions."

"I have total recall of our death-defying journey here."

She let that comment on her driving ability go unchallenged. She did drive pretty fast. And in three days' time they needed to get married. There was now some source of relief in the awareness that the marriage would be a fake. He had no sense of humor and a filthy temper. Even worse, he brooded. She stole a covert glance at his hard, dark chiseled profile...but, gosh, he still looked spectacular! In the moonlight, she averted her attention from him, torn with shame at that betraying response. Deep in the pit of her taut belly, she felt a surge of guilty heat, and was appalled by the immediacy of that reaction. He reminded her of Shiori's father...was that the problem?

She shook her head and studied her tightly linked hands, but although she tried to fight off those painful memories, they began flooding back...

When Houjo had changed his mind about marrying her-three years earlier, Ayame had ended up taking their honeymoon trip solo. Of course it had been dismal. Blind to the glorious sights, she had wandered round Venice as if she was homeless, while she struggled to cope with the pain of Houjo's rejection.

Then, one morning, she had witnessed a pair of youthful lovers having a stand-up row in the piazza san Marco. The sultry brunette had flung something at her boyfriend. As the thick gilded card had fluttered to rest at Ayame's feet the fiery lovers had stalked off in opposite directions. And Ayame had found herself in unexpected possession of an invite to a masked ball at one of the wonderful palaces on the Grand Canal.

Two days later, she had finally rebelled against her boredom and her loneliness. She had purchased a mask and had donned that magical green evening dress. She had felt transformed, excitingly different and feminine. In those days she hadn't owned contact lenses, and since her spectacles combined with her long mane of hair had seemed to give her the dowdy look of an earnest swot she had taken them off, choosing to embrace myopia instead. She had had a cold too, so she had generously dosed herself up with a cold remedy. Unfortunately she hadn't read the warning on the packaging not to take any alcohol with the medication...

When she had seen the vast palazzo ablaze with golden light she had almost lost her nerve, but a crush of important guests had arrived at the same time, forcing her to move ahead of them and pass over her invitation. She had climbed the vast sweeping staircase of gilded brass and marble. By the time she'd entered the superb mirrored ballroom, filled with exquisitely dressed crowds of beautiful people awash with glittering jewels, her nerve had been failing fast. At any minute she had feared exposure as a gatecrasher, sneaking in where she had no right to be.

After hovering, trying desperately hard not to look conspicuous in her solitary state, she had slowly edged her path round to the fluttering curtains on the far side of the huge room and slid through them to find herself out on a big stone balcony. One secure step removed from the festivities, she had watched the glamorous guests mingle and dance— or at least she had watched them as closely as her shortsightedness allowed.

When an unmasked male figure in a white jacket had strolled out onto the balcony with a tray bearing a single glass, to address her in Italian, she'd quite naturally assumed he was a waiter.

"Grazie," she said, striving to appear as if she was just taking the air after a dance or two, and draining the glass with appropriate thirsty fervor. But he spoke again.

"I don't speak Italian—"

"That was spanish," he imparted gently in English. "I thought you might be Spanish. That dress worn with such vibrant coloring as yours is dramatic"

In the lingering silence of her disinterested shrug, he remarked, "you appear to be alone." not easily disconcerted, he lounged lazily back against the stone balustrade, the tray abandoned.

"I was" she pointed out thinly. "And I like being alone"

He inclined his dark head back, his features a complete blur at that distance, only his pale jacket clearly visible to her in the darkness as he stared at her. In a bolshy mood, she stared back, nose in the air, head imperiously high. All of a sudden she was sick to death of being pushed around by people and forced to fulfill their expectations. Her solo trip to Venice had been her first true rebellion, and so far she could not comfort herself with the belief that she had done much with the opportunity.

"You're prickly."

"No, that was rude," Ayame contradicted ruefully, "outright, bloody rudeness."

'is that an apology?' he enquired.

"No, I believe I was clarifying my point. And haven't you got any more drinks to ferry around?" she prompted hopefully.

He stilled, wide shoulders tautening, and then unexpectedly he laughed a shiveringly sensual sound that sent a curious ripple down her taut spine. "Not at present." his easy humor shamed her into a blush. "I'm not in a very good mood."

"I will change that."

"Not could, but will," she noted out loud. "you're very sure of yourself."

"Aren't you?"

In that instant, her own sheer lack of self-confidence flailed her with shamed bitterness, and she threw her head back with desperate pride and a tiny smile of wry amusement. "Always," she murmured steadily then. "Always."

He moved forward, and as an arrow of light from the great chandeliers in the ballroom fell on him she saw an indistinct image of the hard, bitingly attractive angles of his strong bone structure, the gleam of his thick black hair, the brilliance of his dark eyes. and her heart skipped a startled beat.

"Dance with me," he urged softly.

And Ayame laughed with undeniable appreciation. Only she could gatecrash a high society ball and end up being chatted up by one of the waiters. "Aren't you scared that someone will see you and you'll lose your job?"

"Not if we remain out here..."

"Just one dance and then I'll leave."

"the entertainment doesn't meet with your approval?" he probed as he slid her into his arms, his entire approach so subtle, so smooth that she was surprised to find herself there, and then flattered by the sensation of being held as if she were fashioned of the most fragile and delicate spun glass.

"It's suffocatingly formal, and tonight I feel like something different," she mused with perfect truth. "Indeed, tonight I feel just a little wild..."

"Please don't let me inhibit you," he murmured.

And Ayame burst out laughing again.

"Who did you come here with tonight?" he queried.

"Nobody...I'm a gatecrasher," she confided daringly.

"A gatecrasher?"

"You sound shocked..."

"Security is usually very tight at the palazzo d'oro."

"Not if you enter just in front of a party who require a great deal of attentive bowing and scraping."

"You must've had an invitation?"

"It landed at my feet in the piazza san Marco. A beautiful brunette flung it at her boyfriend. I thought you asked me to dance," she complained, since they had yet to move. "Are you now planning to have me thrown out?"

"Not just at present," he confided, folding her closer and staring down at her with narrowed eyes. "You are a very unusual woman."

"Very," Ayame agreed, liking that tag, which hinted at a certain distinction.

"And your name?"

"No names, no pack drill," she sighed. "Ships that pass and all that—"

"I want to board..."

"No can do. I am not my name...my name wasn't even chosen with me in mind," she admitted with repressed bitterness, for Ayame had always been a male name in her family.

"And I want to be someone else tonight."

"Very unusual and very infuriating," he breathed.

"I am a woman who is very, very sure of herself, and a woman of that stature is certain to infuriate," she returned playfully, leaning in to his big powerful body and smiling up at him, set free by anonymity to be whatever she wanted to be.

And so they danced, high above the Grand Canal, all the lights glittering magically in her eyes until she closed them and just drifted in a wonderful dreamy haze...


	15. The vengeful husband 4

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Three.

A burst of forceful Italian dredged Ayame out of that sleepy, seductive flow of memory.

Eyelids fluttering, she returned to the present and frowned to find the land rover at a standstill, headlights glaring on the high banks of a narrow lane.

"What...where—?" she began in complete confusion.

"We have a flat tire," Kouga delivered in a murderous aside as he wrenched open the rattling driver's door.

Ayame scrambled out into the drizzling rain. "but the spare's in for repair!" she exclaimed. Across the bonnet, Kouga surveyed her with what struck her as an overplay of all-male incredulity. "You have no spare tire?"

"no." Ayame busied herself giving the offending flat tire a kick. "Pretty far gone, isn't it? That won't get us home." she looked around herself. "Where on earth are we?"

"It is possible that in the darkness I may have taken a wrong turn."

Considering that they were in a lane that came to a dead end at a field twenty feet ahead, Ayame judged that a miracle of understatement. "You got lost, didn't you?"

Kouga dealt her a slaughtering, silencing glance.

Ayame sighed. "We'd better start walking—"

"Walking?" he was aghast at the concept.

"What else? How long is it since you saw a main road?"

"Some time," Kouga gritted. "But fortunately there is a farmhouse quite close."

"Fat lot of use that's going to be," Ayame muttered. "At two in the morning, only an emergency would give us the excuse to knock people up out of their beds."

"This is an emergency!"

Ayame drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. "I am not rousing an entire family just so that we can ask to use their phone. In any case, who would you suggest I contact?"

"a motoring organization," Kouga informed her with exaggerated patience.

"I don't belong to one."

"A car breakdown recovery business?"

"Have you any idea what that would cost?" Ayame groaned in horror. "It's not worth it for a flat tire! The local garage can run out the spare in the morning. They'll only charge me for their time and petrol—"

"I am not spending the night in that filthy vehicle," Kouga asserted levelly.

'You figure cozying up to those cows would be more fun?" Ayame could not resist saying, surveying the curious beasts who, attracted by the light and the sound of their voices, had ambled up to gawk over the gate at them.

"I passed through a crossroads about a kilometer back. I saw an inn there." with the decisive air of one taking command, Kouga leant into the car. "I presume you have a torch?"

"I'm afraid not," Ayame admitted gruffly.

Not a male who took life's little slings and arrows with a stiff upper lip, Ayame registered by the stark exhalation of breath. Not remotely like the charming, tolerant male she had encountered in Venice three years ago. And how the heck she had contrived to imagine the faintest resemblance now quite escaped her. This was a male impatient of any mishap which injured his comfort—indeed, almost outraged by any set of circumstances which could strand him ignominiously on a horribly wet night in a muddy country lane. So they walked.

"I should have paid some heed to where we were going," Ayame remarked, proffering a generous olive branch.

" "if onlys" exasperate me," Kouga divulged.

Rain trickling down her bare arms, Ayame buttoned her lips. With a stifled imprecation, Kouga removed his dinner jacket and held it out to her.

"Oh, don't be daft," Ayame muttered in astonished embarrassment at such a gesture. "I'm as tough as old boots."

"I insist—"

"No...No, honestly." Ayame started walking again in haste. "you've just come from a hot climate... you're more at risk of a chill than I am."

"Per amor di dio..." Kouga draped the jacket round her narrow shoulders, enfolding her in the smooth silk lining which still carried the pervasive heat and scent of his body. "just keep quiet and wear it!"

In the darkness, a spontaneous grin of appreciation lit Ayame 's face. As she stumbled on the rough road surface Kouga curved a steadying arm round her, and instead of withdrawing that support, kept it there. It was amazing how good that made her feel. He had tremendously good manners, she conceded. Not unnaturally, he was infuriated by the inefficiency that had led to the absence of a spare tire, but at least he wasn't doggedly set on continually reminding her of her oversight. The inn perched at the juncture of lanes was shrouded in darkness. Ayame hung back in the porch. "Do we have to do this?"

Without a shade of hesitation, Kouga strode forward to make use of the ornate door-knocker.

"I would knock up the dead for a brandy and a hot bath."

An outside light went on. A bleary-eyed middle-aged man in a dressing gown eventually appeared. Ayame heard the rustle of money. The security chain was undone at speed. And suddenly mine host became positively convivial. Getting dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night might almost have been a pleasure to him. He showed them up a creaking, twisting staircase into a pleasant room and retreated to fetch the brandy.

"How much money did you give him, for heaven's sake?" Ayame demanded in fascination.

"Sufficient to cover the inconvenience." Kouga surveyed the room and the connecting bathroom with a frowning lack of appreciation.

"It's really quite cozy," Ayame remarked, and it was when compared with her own rather barn-like and bare bedroom at the folly. The floor had a carpet and the bed had a fat satin quilt.

The proprietor reappeared with an entire bottle of brandy and two glasses.

Ayame discarded the jacket, studying Kouga, whose white shirt was plastered to an impressive torso which gleamed brown through the saturated fabric. Her attention fairly caught as she stood there, tousled hair dripping down her rain washed face, she glimpsed the black whorls of hair hazing his muscular chest in a distinctive male triangle as he turned back to her. Her face burned.

"Give me a coin," Ayame told him abruptly.

A curious brow quirking, Kouga withdrew a coin from his pocket. "What—?"

Ayame flipped it from his fingers. "We'll toss for the bed."

"I beg your pardon?"

But Ayame had already tossed. "Heads or tails?" she proffered cheerfully.

"dio—"

"Heads!" Ayame chose impatiently. She uncovered the coin and then sighed. "You get the bed; I get the quilt. Do you mind if I have first shower? I'll be quick."

Moving to the bathroom without awaiting a reply, Ayame closed the door with some satisfaction. The trick was to get over embarrassing ground fast. Had money not been in short supply, she would've asked for a second room, but why bother for the sake of a few hours? Kouga was highly unlikely to succumb to an attack of overpowering lust and make a pass... I should be so lucky, she thought, and then squirmed with boiling guilt.

Stripping off, she stepped into the shower. In five minutes she was out again, smothering a yawn. after towel-drying her hair, she put her bra and pants back on, draped her sodden dress over one exact half of the shower curtain rail and opened the door a crack.

The room was empty. Ayame shot across the bedroom, snatched the quilt and a pillow off the divan, and in ten seconds flat had herself tucked in her makeshift bed on the carpet. Ten minutes later, Kouga reappeared. "accidenti...this isn't a schoolgirl sleep-over!" he bit out, sounding as if he was climbing the walls with exasperation. "We'll share the bed like grown-ups."

"I'm perfectly happy where I am. I lost the toss." Kouga growled something raw and impatient in Italian. "I've slept in far less comfortable places than this. Do stop fussing," she muttered, her voice muffled by the quilt.

"I'm a lot hardier than you are—"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" her wide, anxious gaze appeared over the edge of the satin quilt. She collided with heart stopping dark golden eyes glittering with suspicion below flaring ebony brows. Her stomach clenched, her breath shortening in her dry throat. "Why don't you go and get your hot bath and your brandy?" she suggested tautly, and in so doing tactfully side-stepped the question.

Dear heaven, but he was gorgeous. She listened to him undress. She wanted to look. As the bathroom door closed on him she grimaced, feverishly hot and uneasy and thoroughly ashamed of herself. He was a decent guy and he had made a real effort on her behalf tonight. A Hollywood film star couldn't have been more impressive in his role. And here she was, acting all silly like the schoolgirl he had hinted she was, reacting to him as if he was a sex object and absolutely nothing else. Didn't she despise men who regarded women in that light?

Sure, Ayame, when was the last time a male treated you like a sex object? Venice. She shivered. Instantly she remembered that passionate kiss out on the balcony high above the Grand Canal, how that fierce sizzle of electric excitement in her veins had felt that very first time. Excitement as dangerously addictive as a narcotic drug. And tonight she had experienced that same wild hunger all over again...

A hot, liquid sensation assailing the very crux of her body, Ayame bit her lower lip and loathed her weak, wanton physical self. But no wonder she had been shaken up earlier. No wonder she had briefly imagined more than a superficial resemblance of looks and nationality between Kouga and her daughter's father. But there was no mystery. Her own shatteringly powerful response to both men had been the sole source of similarity.

The bathroom door opened, heralding Kouga's return,

"Ayame...get into the bed," Kouga instructed very dryly.

Ayame ignored the invitation, terrified that he might sense her attraction to him if she got any closer. "I never really thanked you properly for tonight," she said instead, eager to change the subject. "You were a class act."

"Grazie... would you like a brandy?"

"No, thanks."

After the chink of glass, she heard the blankets being trailed back, the creak as the divan gave under his weight. The light went out.

"You know, when i said you'd make a great gigolo, i was really trying to pay you a compliment," she advanced warily.

"I'll bear that in mind."

Emboldened by that apparent new tolerance, Ayame relaxed. "I suppose I owe you an explanation about a few things..." in the darkness, she grimaced, but she felt that he had earned greater honesty.

"When I was a child, Uno's folly paid for itself. But Sumiko liked to live well and my father took out a mortgage rather than reduce their outgoings. I only found out about the mortgage a couple of years ago, when the folly needed roof repairs and the estate couldn't afford to pay for them.'

"Wasn't your stepmother prepared to help?"

"No. in fact Sumiko tried to persuade my father to sell up. I was really scared she might wear him down," she confided. "That was when we had a bit of good luck for a change. I had a piece of antique jewelry valued and we ended up selling that instead—"

"a piece of jewelry?" Kouga interposed with silken softness.

"A ring. My father had forgotten it even existed, but that ring fetched a really tidy sum,"

Ayame shared with quiet pride.

"fancy that," Kouga drawled, and the dark timbre of his deep-pitched accented voice slid down her spine in the most curiously enervating fashion. "Did you sell it on the open market?"

In the darkness, Ayame turned over restively. "No, it was a private sale. I assumed the estate was secure then. I didn't realize how serious things really were until my father died. He never confided in me. But you have to understand that there is nothing I wouldn't do to keep the folly in the family."

"I understand that perfectly."

Ayame licked at her taut lower lip. "So when my wealthy godmother died a few months ago, I was really hoping that she would leave me some money."

"Nothing more natural," Kouga conceded encouragingly.

"There were three of us...three god-daughters. Myself, Kagome and Rin,' Ayame enumerated heavily. "But when the will was read, we all got a shock. Kagura left us a share of her estate, but only on condition that we each marry within the year."

"How extraordinary..."

"So that's why I needed you...to inherit." the hardness of the floor was starting to make its presence felt through the layers of both carpet and quilt. Shifting from one slender unpadded hip to the other with increased discomfort, Ayame added uneasily, "I suppose you think that's rather calculating and greedy of me...?"

"No, I think you are very brave to take me on trust," Kouga delivered gently.

Ayame smiled, relieved by the assurance and encouraged. "This floor is kind of hard..." she admitted finally.

"And you're being such a jolly good sport about it," Kouga remarked slumberous from the comfort of the bed. "I really admire that quality in a woman."

"Do you?" Ayame whispered in surprise.

"But of course. You're so delightfully democratic! No feminine sulks or pleas for special treatment," Kouga pointed out approvingly. "You lost the toss and you took it on the chin just like a man would."

Ayame nodded slowly. "I guess I did."

It didn't seem quite the moment to suggest that he took the floor instead. But a helpless little kernel of inner warmth blossomed at his praise. He mightn't fancy her but he seemed to at least respect her.

"buona notte, Ayame."

"goodnight, Kouga."

Ayame woke with a start to find Kouga standing over her fully dressed. She blinked in confusion. He looked so impossibly tall, dark and handsome.

"The land rover's outside," he imparted.

"Outside...how?" she sat up, hugging the quilt and striving not to wince as every aching muscle she possessed shrieked complaint.

"I called your local garage. They were keen to help. I'll see you downstairs for breakfast," Kouga concluded.

It was already after nine. Ayame hurried into the bathroom and looked in anguish at her reflection. Overnight her hair had exploded into dozens of babyish titian curls. She ran her fingers through them and they all stood up on end. In despair, she tried to push them down again.

Ten minutes later, Ayame went downstairs, curls damped down, last night's dress crumpled, and the sensation of looking an absolute mess doing nothing for her confidence. She slunk over to the corner table where Kouga was semi-concealed behind a newspaper, beautifully shaped dark imperious head bent, luxuriant black hair immaculate, not a single strand out of place.

Ayame sank down opposite, in no hurry to draw attention to herself. And then her attention fell on the photograph of the statuesque brunnette adorning the front page of his newspaper.

"Give me that paper!" she gasped. "Please!"

Ebony brows knitting in incomprehension, Kouga began lowering the paper, but Ayame reached over and snatched it from him without further ado, spreading the publication flat on the table to read the blurb that went with the picture.

"She's married already ...married!" Ayame groaned in appalled disbelief. "Page four..." she muttered, frantically leafing through the pages to reach the main story.

"Who has got married?"

"Kagome Higurashi... one of Kagura's other god-daughters.'

"The lady has beaten you to the finishing line?" Kouga enquired smoothly.

Ayame was too busy reading to reply. "Inuyasha Taisho... oh, dear heaven would you look at that dirty great enormous mansion they're standing outside?" she demanded in stricken appeal "not only has she got herself a husband, he looks besotted, and he has to be loaded—"

"Inuyasha Taisho, yes...loaded," Kouga confirmed very drily.

"I feel ill!" Ayame confessed truthfully, thrusting the offending newspaper away in disgust.

"Jealous... envious?"

Ayame turned shaken eyes of reproach on him. "Oh, no... It's just... it's just everything always seems so easy for Kagome...she's incredibly beautiful! We were practically best friends until Houjo fell in love with her. That's why we didn't get married," she completed tightly.

After that dialogue, breakfast was a silent meal. Ayame was embarrassed by her outburst and insulted by his response. Jealous? Envious? She thought about that as she drove them back to the folly. No... Kouga had got her completely wrong.

As her chief bridesmaid, Kagome had stayed at the folly the week running up to that misfired wedding three years earlier. The glamorous model had accepted the bridegroom's attention and admiration as her due, responding with flirtatious smiles and amusing repartee. Houjo had been, quite simply, dazzled. And Ayame had been naively pleased that her friend and her fiancé appeared to be getting on so well.

But on their wedding day Houjo had turned to look at Ayame at the altar, only to confess in despair, "I can't go through with this..."

The wedding party had adjourned to the vestry.

"I've fallen in love with Kagome" Houjo had admitted baldly, his shame and distress at having to make that admission unconcealed.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kagome had demanded furiously. "I don't even like you!"

Fierce anger had filled Ayame then. She could have borne that devastating change of heart better had Kagome returned Houjo's feelings. Then, at least, there might have seemed some point to the whole ghastly mess. But Kagome's careless encouragement of male homage had done the damage. Both Ayame and Houjo had been bitterly hurt and humiliated by the experience.

Ayame had long since forgiven Houjo, indeed still regarded him as a dear friend. Yet she had not been half so generous to Kagome, she conceded now. She had awarded her former friend the lion's share of the blame. Only now did it occur to her that Kagome had been a thoughtless teenager at the time, she herself only a year older. Perhaps, she reflected grudgingly, she had been unjust...

Face still and strained over her troubling reflections, for Ayame never liked to think that she had been less than fair, she climbed out of the land rover outside the folly.

"Do you realize that you have not spoken a single word since breakfast?" Kouga enquired without any expression at all.

Ayame tautened defensively. "I was thinking about Houjo"

Dark color slowly rose to accentuate the hard angles of Kouga 's slashing cheekbones, his lean, strong face tightening. He surveyed her from beneath dense inky black lashes, eyes broodingly dark and icy cold. Colliding unexpectedly with that chilling scrutiny, Ayame felt her stomach clench as if she had hit black ice. "What's wrong?"

"What could possibly be wrong?"

"I don't know, but..." Ayame continued with a frown of uncertainty.

"Gosh, I owe you some money for our overnight stay—"

"I will present you with a bill for all services rendered," Kouga asserted with sardonic cool.

"thanks...a cheque might bounce if I wrote it today." But Ayame 's green eyes remained anxious. "When are you planning to move in?" she asked abruptly.

"The day of our wedding," Kouga revealed.

"So what time will you be here, then?" she pressed.

"I'll be at the church in time for the ceremony." an almost dangerous smile curved his wide, sensual mouth. "You need cherish no fear that I might fail to show. After all, in this materialistic world, you get what you pay for."

Disturbed at having her secret apprehensions so easily read, Ayame watched him stroll fluidly towards the Porsche. How did he do it? She wondered then in fierce frustration. How did he contrive to make her agonizingly aware of that dynamic masculinity and virile sexuality even as he walked away from her? The angle of his proud dark head, the strong set of his wide shoulders, the sleek twist of his lean hips and the indolent grace of those long, powerful legs as he moved all grabbed and held her attention.

As he opened the car door he glanced back at her.

Caught staring again, Ayame looked as guilty as she felt.

"By the way," Kouga murmured silkily, "I forgot to mention how impressed I was by that prenuptial contract I signed. That we each leave the marriage with exactly what we brought into it is very fair."

"Sexual equality," Ayame muttered, unable to take her eyes off the way the sunlight glistened over black hair she already knew felt like luxurious silk beneath her fingertips.

And she recalled with a little frisson of helpless pleasure how good it had felt in Sumiko and Nina's radius to have a man by her side she could trust.

"I'm all for it," Kouga informed her lazily, angling the most shatteringly sensual smile of approval at her.

Even at a distance that fascinating smile had the power to jolt and send a current of all too warm appreciation quivering through her. As he drove off, Ayame gave him a jerky, self-conscious wave.

"Do you realize how often you have mentioned Kouga's name over the past two days?" Dia prompted tautly.

"Kouga is rather central to my plans, and we are getting married tomorrow," Ayame pointed out with some amusement as she straightened Shiori's bed, Dia having arrived in the midst of the bedtime story ritual. "Love you, sweetheart," she whispered, dropping a kiss on her daughter's smooth brow.

The toddler mumbled a sleepy response and burrowed below the duvet until only a cluster of black curls showed. Ayame switched off the bedside light and walked out into the corridor, leaving the door ajar.

"I'm scared that you're developing a crush on the guy," Dia delivered baldly, determined to send the message of her concern fully home.

"I think I'm a little too mature for a crush, Dia —"

"that's what's worrying me." the brunette grimaced. "You are paying Kouga to put on a good act. He's hired help—whatever you want to call it... you can't afford to fall in love with him!"

Ayame looked pained. "I'm not going to fall in love with him."

"Then why do you keep on talking about how much he shone at Sumiko's party?"

"Because I give honor where it's due and he did!"

"Not to mention how wonderful his manners are and how many and varied are the subjects on which he can converse like Einstein!" Dia completed doggedly.

"So I was impressed..." Ayame shrugged, but her cheeks were flushed, her eyes evasive.

"Ayame...you've had a pretty rough time the last couple of years and you're vulnerable," Dia spelt out uncomfortably. "I'm sure Kouga is a really terrific bloke, but you don't know him well enough to trust him yet. In fact, he could be thinking you'll be a darned good catch with this house behind you."

#He knows I'm in debt up to my eyeballs,# Ayame contradicted.

Confronted with the full extent of her friend's unease, however, Ayame took some time to get to sleep that night. Was it so obvious that she was attracted to Kouga? Was it obvious to him? She cringed at the suspicion. But, even so, Dia was mad to suggest that she was in danger of falling for Kouga.

She had returned from Venice with a heart broken into so many pieces she had been torn apart by her own turmoil. Falling like a ton of bricks for a complete stranger in the space of one night had been a hard lesson indeed. Her battered pride, her pain and her despair had taken a very long time to fade. Ayame had not the slightest intention of allowing her undeniable attraction to Kouga go one step further than appreciation from a safe distance.

In its day, it had been a costly designer dress. The ivory silk wedding gown hugged Ayame's shoulders, smoothly clung to her slender waist and hips and fanned out into beautifully embroidered panels between mid-thigh and ankle. It had belonged to her late mother, and, foolish and uneasy as she felt at using the dress for such a purpose, she thought it would look very odd if she didn't make some effort to put on a show of being a real bride.

And this afternoon Ayame also had an important appointment to keep with her bank manager. Hopefully a candid explanation of the terms of her godmother's will would persuade the older man that the folly was a more secure investment than he had previously believed. With his agreement she would be able to re-employ the most vital estate workers, and very soon things would get back to normal around her home, she thought cheerfully.

"Pretty mummy," Shiori enthused, liquid dark eyes huge as she took an excited twirl in the pink summer dress and frilly ankle socks which she loved. "Pretty Shiori?" she added.

"Very pretty," Ayame agreed with a grin.

Dia drove them to the church in her car. Ayame was shaken to see quite a crowd waiting in the churchyard to see her arrive. She recognized every face. Former estate staff and tenants, people she had known all her life.

An older woman who had retired as the folly's last housekeeper moved forward to press a beautiful bouquet into Ayame's empty hands. "Everybody's so happy for you, miss Uno" she said with embarrassing fervor. "We all hope you have a really wonderful day!"

As other voices surged to offer the same sincere good wishes for her future happiness, Ayame's eyes stung and flooded with rare tears. She blinked rapidly, touched to the heart but also wrenched by guilt that her coming marriage would only be an empty pretence.

As she entered the small church, Kouga turned his imperious head to stare down the aisle.

His strong, dark face stilled in what might have been surprise at her appearance in the silk own, dark golden eyes glittering. Ayame's tear-drenched gaze ran over him. Sheathed in an exquisitely tailored charcoal-grey suit, he exuded the most breathtaking aura of command and sophistication. He had such incredible impact that she forgot how to breathe and her knees wobbled. There was just something about him, she thought with dizzy discomfiture.

Unexpectedly, another, younger man stood beside Kouga. Slim and dark, he looked tense, his eyes slewing away from Ayame as she gave him a friendly nod of acknowledgement.

The ceremony began. Only at the point where Kouga took her hand to put on the ring did Ayame register that she had totally overlooked the necessity of supplying one. Relief filled her when Kouga produced a narrow gold band and slid it onto her wedding finger.

"Thanks..." she muttered, only half under her breath, reddening at the vicar's look of surprise at that unusual bridal reaction.

When the brief marriage service was concluded, the register was signed. Dia and the other man, whom Kouga addressed as Hakkaku, performed their function as witnesses. All formalities dealt with, Ayame rubbed her still damp and stinging eyes, and accidentally dislodged one of her contact lenses. With an exclamation of dismay, she dropped to her knees. "Don't move, anyone...I've lost one of my lenses!"

Kouga reached down and flicked up the tiny item from where it glimmered on the stone floor. He slipped it into his pocket, evidently aware that without the aid of cleansing solution she could not immediately replace the lens. "Relax, I have it..."

Amazed by the speed of his reactions, Ayame skimmed a glance up at him. At the same time he bent down to help her upright again. As she focused myopically on him through one eye, she closed the other in an involuntary attempt to see a little better. In that split second his features blurred, throwing his strong facial bones into a different kind of prominence that lent them a stark, haunting familiarity. Ayame froze in outright disbelief. Her Venetian lover!

In that instant of incredulous recognition shock seized her by the throat and almost strangled the life force from her. "You...y-you?" she began, stammering wildly.

Ayame gaped at Kouga in an uncomprehending stupor. Her head pounded sickly and he swam back out of focus again. As she blacked out, Kouga caught her in his arms before she could fall.

N/A: I KNOW, I KNOW! You can kill me if you want…. But the truth is that life hasn't been really good to me lately… Do you guys remember that I mentioned there was this guy I was dating? Well, that didn't last long… but we became really good friends… after that I get sick, and I had to visit a lot of doctors, which I hate BTW…. And now I'm better. The sad part of this little story is that my friend decided that he didn't want to be in this world anymore, and last Saturday he killed himself. It was devastating news for me and turn all my world upside down.

I was planning these updates for the weekend but well… Today is the first day I don't cry my eyes out…. And I decided to entertain myself working on this story. It's a good therapy and I missed you all already.

I hope you enjoyed, and I will be posting more updates soon.

Love ya all!

Sahora.


	16. The vengeful husband 5

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Five

"Take a deep breath..." Kouga's deep, dark drawl instructed with complete calm.

Whoosh. The air flooded back into Ayame's constricted lungs. Perspiration broke out on her clammy brow. Her eyes fluttered open again. She found herself seated on a hard wooden pew.

"See..." Dia was soothing Shiori, several feet away. "Mummy's all right." and then, in a whispered aside to Kouga, "I bet Ayame fainted because she's exhausted—she works eighteen-hour days!"

As Ayame lifted her swimming head everything came hurtling back to her. She simply gawped at Kouga, still doubting the stunning evidence provided by that one myopic glance.

Shimmering dark eyes held her bemused gaze steadily, and all over again that frantically disorientating sense of frightening familiarity gripped her.

"You can't be...you can't be!" she gasped abruptly, impervious to the presence of the others. "Take it easy, Ayame," Dia advised, evidently unaware that anything was seriously wrong. "You passed out and you're confused, that's all. Look, I'll keep Shiori with me until you're feeling better. You should lie down for a while. I'll call over later and see how you are."

Still in a world of her own, Ayame moved her muzzy head as if she was afraid it might fall off her neck. Kouga Wolf could not be the man with whom she had spent the night in Venice; he could not possibly be the same man! And yet, he was! It made no sense, it seemed beyond the bounds of even the wildest feat of imagination, but those strong promptings of familiarity which had troubled her apparently had their basis in solid fact.

"Can you stand?" Kouga enquired.

"I'm fine...really," Ayame whispered unconvincingly as she fought to focus her mind. She got up on legs that felt like cotton wool sticks. She shook hands with the vicar, who was anxiously hovering. Then she stared at Kouga again with a kind of appalled fascination and knew she would never feel fine again, knew she felt, rather, as if she had lost her mind in that devastating moment of recognition.

"The car's outside, sir." Hakkaku spoke for the first time as he turned from the window.

Ayame's attention swiveled to the younger man. Sir? She encountered a fleeting look of pity in Hakkaku's gaze. The sort of pity one experienced for someone sick when all hope had gone, Ayame labeled with a bemused shudder.

What on earth was going on? Who was Kouga Wolf? And whoever he was, whatever he was, she had just made him her husband!

"Calm yourself," Kouga urged before they walked back out of the church to face the crowd of well-wishers waiting to see them off.

"But I recognized you..." she told him shakily.

"You mean you finally shuffled the memory of one face out of the no doubt countless one night stands you have enjoyed?" Kouga murmured in a silken smooth stab, making her shrink in stricken disbelief at such a charge. "Am I to feel honored by that most belated distinction?"

His cool confirmation that he was who she believed he was shook Ayame up even more. In the back of her mind she had still somehow expected and foolishly hoped that Kouga would turn with a raised brow to tell her that he hadn't a clue what she was talking about.

"You don't understand," she began, in an unsteady attempt to defend herself, so confused was she still. "I could hardly see you that night, not in any detail...your face was a blur and out of focus—you looked different..."

"I guess one bird for the plucking looks much like another," Kouga responded with a sardonic bite that sizzled down her spine like a hurricane warning and made her turn even paler.

A bird for the plucking? She didn't understand that crack any more than she could understand anything else. As they left the churchyard her attention fell on the big silver limousine waiting by the kerb. Pressed into a vehicle which was the very last word in expensive luxury, she was even more bewildered. Hakkaku swung into the front seat. The tinted glass barrier between the front and the back of the limo was partially open, denying them privacy.

Ayame snatched in a shuddering breath. Her brain ached, all at once throwing up a dozen even more confusing inconsistencies. In a daze, she struggled hopelessly to superimpose the image of the Kouga she had thought she was getting to know over her memory of the male who had romanced her in Venice, the sleek, seductive rat who had torn her inside out with the pain of loss...

Involuntarily she focused on Kouga again. There was a strikingly relaxed quality to the indolent sprawl of his strong, supple body. In the state Ayame was in, that supreme poise and cool was uniquely intimidating.

Within minutes the limo drew up outside the folly. Ayame scrambled out in haste, her heartbeat banging in her eardrums. With damp, nerveless hands she unlocked and thrust open the heavy front door to walk into the echoing medieval hall with its aged flag stoned floor.

She spun round, then, to face Kouga, where he had stilled by the giant smoke-blackened stone fireplace. Her oval face was stiff with strain as she attempted to match his aura of complete self-command.

"I can't believe that coincidence has anything to do with this..." Ayame admitted jaggedly.

"Very wise." Kouga surveyed her with a grim satisfaction that was chilling.

"How could you possibly have found out who I was...or where I lived?"

"With persistence, no problem is insuperable. It took time, but I had you traced."

"You had me traced...dear heaven, why?" Ayame could not hide her incredulity. "Why the heck would you even want to do such a thing?"

"Don't play dumb," Kouga advised with derision.

Ayame shook her head dizzily as she braced her hands on the back of a tapestry-covered chair to steady herself. "You came to that interview in disguise...you have to be certifiably nuts to have gone to such outrageous lengths—"

"No...Merely guilty of the inexpressibly vain assumption that I might be in some danger of being recognized."

Ayame winced at that jibe and closed her eyes, but then she had to open them again, possessed as she was by a sick compulsion to keep on watching Kouga. But his lean, hard features betrayed nothing. "Why did you do this? What's in it for you? You can't be unemployed or b-broke."

"No... What was that vulgar term you used about your fortunate friend, Kagome? I'm "loaded"," Kouga conceded with a scornful twist of his lips. "But you will not profit from that reality, I assure you."

"I don't understand..." her hand flew up to her pounding temples. "I'm getting the most awful headache."

"Retribution hurts," Kouga slotted in softly. "And by the time I am finished with you, a headache will be the very least of your problems."

"What's that supposed to mean? For heaven's sake...are you threatening me?" Ayame gasped, releasing her hold on the chair to take an angry step forward.

"No, I believe I am reveling in the extraordinary sense of power I'm experiencing. I've never felt like that around a woman before," Kouga mused thoughtfully. "But then, where you are concerned, I have no pity."

"You're trying to scare me..."

"How easily do you scare?" Kouga enquired with appalling self-possession.

"You don't behave like the man I met in Venice!" Ayame condemned shakily.

"You're not the woman I met then either. But she'll emerge eventually... I have this wonderful conviction that over the next six months whatever I want, I will receive."

Brilliant dark eyes gleamed with cruel amusement below level black brows. "My every wish will be your command. Nothing will be too much trouble. I will just snap my fingers and you will jump..."

Ayame tried and failed to swallow. The living nightmare of her own confusion was growing. While one small part of her stood back and believed that he was talking outrageous nonsense, all the rest of her was horribly impressed by the lethal edge of cool, collected threat in that rich, dark drawl and the deadly chill in his level gaze. "What are you trying to say?"

"As a sobering taste of your near future, consider this... depending on my choice of timing, if I walk out on this marriage you will lose everything you possess." Kouga spelt out that reminder with an immovable cool that made what he was saying all the more shocking.

The silence, broken only by the steady tick of the grandfather clock, hung there between them as breakable as a thin sheet of glass.

"No...No..." every scrap of remaining color drained from Ayame's shaken face as she absorbed the full weight of that threat. "you can't do that to me!"

"I think you'll find that I can do anything I want..." strolling closer with fluid ease, Kouga stretched out a seemingly idle hand and closed it over her clenched fingers. Slowly, relentlessly employing the pressure of his infinitely greater strength, he pulled her towards him.

"Stop it...let go of me!" Ayame cried, totally unprepared for this even more daunting development, heartbeat thundering in panic, breath snarling up in her convulsing throat.

"That is no way to talk to a new husband," Kouga censured indolently as he skimmed a confident hand down to the shallow indentation at the base of her spine and held her there, mere inches from him. He studied her with satisfaction.

"And particularly not one with such high expectations of your future behavior. all that cutesy tossing of coins and sleeping on the floor like a naive little virgin...it's wasted on a male who has perfect recall of being pushed down on a bed and having his shirt ripped off within hours of meeting you!"

As that rich, dark-timbered voice flailed down her taut spine like a silken whip, Ayame 's eyes grew huge and raw with stricken recollection of her own abandon that night in Venice. She trembled, her pallor now laced with hot ribbons of pink.

"You were wild," Kouga savored huskily. "It may be the most expensive one-night stand I ever had, but the sex was unforgettable."

Expensive? But she still couldn't concentrate. She gazed up at him, as trapped as a butterfly speared by a cruel pin. Only in her case the pin was the stabbing thrust of intense humiliation piercing her to the heart. raising one lean brown hand, he rubbed a blunt forefinger over the tremulous line of her full lower lip and she shivered, spooked by the blaze of those brilliant dark golden eyes so close, the shocking effect of that insolent

Caress on her tender mouth. With stunned disconcertion she felt a spark of heat flame into a smoldering tight little knot that scorched the pit of her tense stomach.

"You burned me alive," Kouga whispered mesmerically. "and you're going to do that for me again...and again...and again until I don't want you any more...is that understood?"

No, nothing was understood. Too much had happened too fast, and at absolutely the wrong psychological moment. Ayame had stood at that altar, firmly and exultantly believing that she was in the very act of solving her every problem. Everything had fallen apart when she was least equipped to deal with it. Now she was simply reeling from moment to moment in the suffocating grip of deep, paralyzing shock.

"Who are you...why are you doing this to me?" she demanded all over again, her incomprehension unconcealed as he released her.

"Isn't it strange how the passage of time operates?" Kouga remarked with a philosophical air.

"What you once didn't want to know for your own protection, you are now desperate to discover—"

"You can't do this to me...you can't threaten me...I won't let you!" Ayame swore vehemently.

"Watch me," Kouga advised, consulting the rapier-thin gold watch on his wrist with tremendous poise. "Now, I suggest you locate your passport and start packing."

"Passport...p-packing?" Ayame parroted.

"My surprise, cara." his mocking smile didn't add one iota of warmth to the cold brilliance of his dark eyes. "In a couple of hours a helicopter will pick us up and take us to the airport. We're flying to Venice. I want to go home."

Ayame backed away from him, green eyes burnished by angry bewilderment. "Venice? Are you out of your mind? I'm not going to Italy with you!"

A fleeting smile of sardonic amusement curved his expressive mouth. "Think that refusal through. If I leave this house without you, I will not return, and you will forfeit any hope of winning your inheritance in six months' time."

"You bastard..." Ayame mumbled sickly as that message sank in. evidently Kouga knew far more than she had naively told him. He knew the exact conditions of her godmother's will. A marriage that lasted less than that six-month deadline would not count.

His stunning dark eyes narrowed to an icy splinter of gold. "In the light of the circumstances of your child's birth, I'm astonished to hear you use that particular word."

Slashed with guilty unease by that unwelcome reminder, Ayame's facial muscles locked tight. Shiori...her mind screamed with equal suddenness, as she finally faced up to and acknowledged the connection between this particular male and her child. Their child. The furious color in her cheeks receded to leave her pale as milk. Shiori was Kouga's daughter as well—not that he appeared to have even a suspicion of the fact, although he seemed to have a daunting grasp of every other confidential aspect of her life.

"And by the way," Kouga murmured sotto voce, "when you collect your daughter from the lodge, try not to forget the confidentiality clause in the pre-nuptial contract we both signed. If you talk about this, I will talk to the executor of your godmother's will."

Ayame closed her eyes tightly again. "I can't believe this is happening to me..." she ground out unsteadily.

And it was true. She had played into his hands so completely that she had tied herself in knots. Her home, her security, both her future and her daughter's were entirely reliant on Kouga maintaining his verbal agreement with her. If they parted company a day before those six months was up, she would indeed lose everything she had worked so hard to retain.

Kouga lifted one of her hands and lazily uncurled her fingers to plant something into her palm. "You're missing lens... perhaps if you replace it, your view of the world will be clarified."

Her lashes flew up. "You are one sarcastic—!"

"And when you have shed the equivalent of Miss Havisham's wedding gown, which strangely enough does more for you than anything I have recently seen you in, is it possible that you could dig very deep into your wardrobe and produce something even passably presentable in which to travel?" Kouga enquired gently.

"I'm not going to Italy...I'm not leaving to go anywhere...I have too many responsibilities here!" Ayame shot at him in a rising crescendo of desperation. "This is my home...you cannot make me leave it!"

"I can't make you do anything," Kouga conceded softly. "The choice is yours."

Outrage gripped Ayame at that quip. Both her hands closed into fierce fists of frustration.

"You're blackmailing me...what choice do I have?"

Kouga surveyed her with immovable cool and said nothing.

Unnerved by that lack of reaction, Ayame twisted away and raced upstairs to her bedroom. Her mind was in a state of utter turmoil, stray thoughts hitting her like thrown knives thudding into a shrinking target. How would Kouga feel if he found out that she had conceived his child that night in Venice? She was in no hurry to find out. Wouldn't that give him even more power over her? And why the heck had she wanted to christened Shiori "Venecia"? Was that fanciful use of the Italian name of that great city too remote a connection to occur to anyone but her own foolish and sentimental self?

What the heck was Kouga trying to do to her? Most of all, her brain screeched, why was he doing it? His behavior made not the smallest sense. In fact her sheer inability to comprehend why Kouga Wolf should have employed diabolical cunning and deception to sneak into her life and threaten to blow it asunder was the most terrifying aspect of all.

He knew so much about her, but as yet she knew next to nothing about him—and ignorance was not bliss!

Galvanized into action by that acknowledgement, Ayame reached for the phone by her bed and punched out the number of Houjo's stud farm, praying he was in his office because he hated mobile phones and refused to carry one. 'Houjo...it's Ayame —'

"How are you, old girl?" Houjo cut in warmly. "Odd you should ring. I was actually thinking of dropping down this—"

"Houjo...do you remember telling me that it's possible to find almost any information you want on the internet?" Ayame interrupted with scant ceremony. "Could you do that for me as a favor and fax anything you get?"

"Sure. What kind of information are you after?"

"anything you can get on an Italian called... Kouga Wolf"

"There's something vaguely familiar about that surname," Houjo commented absently. "I wonder if he's into horses..."

"I'll be grateful for anything you can send me, but don't tell anyone I've been enquiring," she warned nervously.

"No problem. Anything wrong down there?' he enquired. "You sound harassed. What's the connection? Who is this chap?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Talk to you soon...thanks, Houjo." Ayame replaced the receiver.

She studied the framed photo of Houjo by her bed and gave his grinning cheerful image the thumbs-up sign. To fight Kouga she had to find out who and what she was dealing with.

No way could she go to Italy! The folly could not be left empty. And who would feed the hens and Nero, her elderly horse, look after the dogs? Work that the wedding had so far prevented her from carrying out today, she recalled dully. Shedding her late mother's gown, she pulled on her work jeans and an old sweater. She could not bear the idea of leaving her home...

But if she didn't, she would lose the folly for ever. Forever. Perspiration beaded her upper lip. Her shoulders dropped in defeat. In the short term, what choice did she have but to play along with Kouga's demands? And that meant going to Italy with Shiori. Before she could lose her nerve, she dug a couple of suitcases out of a box room further down the corridor.

She packed them with a hastily chosen selection of her clothing and her daughter's, squeezing in toys until both cases bulged. A quiet knock sounded on the bedroom door.

It was Hakkaku. His face a study of careful solemnity, he passed her several sheets of neatly trimmed fax paper. "This was on the machine in the library when I went to use it, signora."

Her fair complexion awash with disconcerted pink as she glimpsed the topmost page, which bore a recognizable picture of Kouga, she said stiffly, "you work for Kouga?"

"As his executive assistant, signora."

closing the door again, wondering in hot-cheeked chagrin if Kouga had personally censored the information sent by Houjo or if, indeed, he considered her efforts to learn about him a source of amusement rather then a worrying development, Ayame spread the results of her former fiancé's surf on the internet across the bed.

Then she started reading. A piece entitled "billion kill on wall street". It was three months old. Kouga was described as a finance magnate, brilliant at playing the world currency markets, born rich and getting even richer. His personal fortune was estimated in a string of noughts that needed counting and incredulous re-counting before she could suspend scepticism. And this is the guy who took a cheque from me when I was stony broke and he knew it...? Ayame thought in numbed disbelief.

He was a louse—lower than a louse, even. He was microscopic bacteria! He had no honor, no decency, no shame, no scruples. She read on. Reference was made to Kouga 's reputation as a commitment-shy womanizer, his ruthless business practices, his implacable nature, his complete lack of sentiment. Ayame was chilled by the perusal of such accolades, and soon decided that it was better not to read any more because it was in all likelihood ninety per cent rubbish and gossip.

No Uno had ever been guilty of running away from a fight, she reminded herself fiercely. But her problems with the estate were all financial, and Kouga had probably been the sort of child who'd started investing his pocket money and playing the stock market at the age of six. She was outmatched, and she felt quite sick at the memory of having confided in him about her overdraft.

Even allowing for exaggeration, Kouga was evidently a strikingly effective financial strategist. He was rich, feared and envied, doubtless used to wielding enormous power and influence. A control freak? She glanced down at the grainy picture. So forbidding, so severe, so utterly and completely unlike the male she had fallen madly in love with in Venice. But so dauntingly, chillingly like the male she had married today...

Nothing she had read suggested that he was secretly insane, or given to peculiar starts and fancies, but she was not one bit closer to solving the mystery of his motivation in seeking to punish her.

What did he want to punish her for? What had she done? She had spent only one night with him, yet for some inexplicable reason he had gone to huge lengths to track her down and hog-tie her by deception into a marriage that had never been intended to be anything but a sham. In achieving that feat, Kouga now had the ability to influence and ultimately control her every move over the next six months. The price of defiance would be the loss of everything she held dear.

And although she didn't want to do it, she made herself remember that night in Venice, when her explosive response to his first kiss had shocked her inside out. Within seconds, Ayame was plunging back into the past—indeed; suddenly stung into eagerly seeking out those memories, almost as if some part of her believed they might be a comfort...

"I said just one dance before I leave," she reminded Kouga stiffly, thoroughly unnerved by her own behavior and pulling hurriedly back from him.

For Houjo had never once made her feel like that. Only now did she understand why her relationship with the younger man had failed. Neither of them had made an effort to share a bed before their wedding. Houjo had said he didn't mind waiting. Theirs had been a love without a spark of passion, an unsentimental fondness which they had both mistaken for something deeper.

"Why should you leave?" Kouga demanded.

"I don't belong here—"

He vented a soft, amused laugh. "Running scared all of a sudden?"

"I'm not scared. I—"

"Are you committed to someone else?"

Recalling Houjo's betrayal, fiery pride made her eyes flash. "I don't believe in commitment!"

"If only that was the truth," Kouga drawled, supremely unimpressed by that declaration. "In my experience all women ultimately want and expect commitment, no matter what they say in the beginning."

Ayame flashed him a look of supreme scorn. having come within inches of the deepest commitment a man could make to a woman and lost out, she no longer had any faith in the worth and security of promises. "But I don't follow the common herd...haven't you realized that yet?"

As she stepped back from him, he shot out a hand and linked his fingers firmly with hers to keep her close. "Either you're bitter...or extremely clever."

"No, frank...and easily bored."

"Not when I kiss you—"

"You stopped!" she condemned.

An appreciative smile of intense amusement slashed his dark features. "We were attracting attention. I'm not a fan of public displays."

In the mood to fight with her own shadow, Ayame shrugged. "Then you're too sedate, too cautious, and too conventional for me..."

And, like Neanderthal man reacting with reckless spontaneity to a challenge, Kouga hauled her back into his arms and crushed her mouth with fierce, hungry passion under his again.

When she had emerged, her lips tingling, every sense leaping with vibrant excitement and delighted pride at this proof of her feminine powers to provoke, she had giggled. "I liked that...I liked that very much. But I'm still going to leave."

"You can't—"

"watch me..." sashaying her slim but curvaceous hips, she had spun in her low-heeled pumps and moved towards the doors that stood open on the ballroom, willing him to follow her with every fiber of her being.

"If you walk out of here, you will never see me again..."

"Cuts both ways," she murmured playfully over one slight shoulder, and then she recalled that he was a waiter...or was he? Somehow that didn't seem quite as likely as it had earlier.

"Are you a waiter?" she paused to ask uncertainly. "Because if you are, I'm not playing fair."

"What would you like me to be?"

"Don't be facetious—"

"So that treatment doesn't cut both ways! Of course I am not a waiter" he countered in impatient dismissal.

She smiled then. So he had lifted a tray and brought her a drink specifically to approach her. She was impressed, incredibly flattered as well. "Then you're a guest, a legitimate one, yet you're not masked."

"I'm—"

"You really are dying to introduce yourself, aren't you? I don't want to know... after tonight, I'll never see you again. What would be the point?"

"You might be surprised—"

"I don't think so...are you going to follow me out of here?"

"No," he delivered with level cool.

"Ok...fine. I felt like company, but I'm sure I can find that elsewhere...but then I sort of like you—the way you kiss anyway," she admitted baldly.

"One moment you behave like a grown woman, the next you talk like a schoolgirl."

Ayame's face burned with chagrin. As she attempted to stalk off he tugged her back to him and spoke in a lazy tone of indulgence.

"Tell me, what would you like to do tonight that you cannot do here?"

She put her head to one side and answered on impulse. "Sail in a gondola in the moonlight..."

Kouga flinched with almost comical immediacy. "Not my style. Tourist territory."

Ayame pulled her fingers free of his. "I am a tourist. I dare you."

"I'll arrange a trip for you tomorrow—"

"Too late."

"Then sadly, we are at an impasse."

"It's your loss." with a careless jerk of one shapely shoulder, Ayame strolled back into the ballroom. She took her time strolling, but he didn't catch up with her as she had hoped. She wondered why she was playing such dangerous games. She wondered if, her whole life through, she would ever again meet a man who could turn her bones to water and her brain to mush with a single kiss...

On that thought, her stroll slowed to a complete crawl. She glanced back in the direction she had come and froze, suddenly horrified by the discovery that she couldn't pick him out from all the other guests milling about on the edge of the dance floor. Already he was lost.

"blackmail leaves me cold," a familiar and undeniably welcome drawl husked in her ear from behind, making her jump a split second before a huge surge of relief washed over her, leaving her weak. "But that look of pure panic soothes my ego!"

Whirling round, she laughed a little uneasily. "I wasn't—"

"It is rather frightening to feel like this, isn't it, cam?"

"I don't know what you mean—"

"Oh, yes, you do...stay frank, I prefer it."

"How do you feel about one-night stands?" she asked daringly.

He stilled. A silence thick as fog sprang up.

"I don't do them," he said dryly. "I was rather hoping you didn't either."

"How do you feel about virgins?"

"Deeply unexcited."

"Ok, you don't ask me any questions, I won't tell you any lies...how's that for a ground rule?"

"You'll soon get bored with those limitations," he stated with supreme confidence.

But she knew she would not. Honest answers would expose the reality she longed to escape. The young woman who had disappointed from birth by being a girl, who had been denied the opportunity even to continue her education, and who had finally crowned her inadequacies by being jilted at the altar, subjecting her family, to whom appearances were everything, to severe embarrassment and herself to bitter recriminations. She had no desire to pose as an object of pity.

Within minutes he led her down that grand staircase. Realizing only then that she had won and that they were leaving the ball together, she stretched up on her toes to kiss him in the crowded hall, generous in victory. Hearing what sounded like a startled buzz of comment erupt around them, she drew back, stunned by her own audacity. She blushed, but he just laughed.

"You're so natural with me," he breathed appreciatively "as if you've known me all your life..."

A magnificent beribboned gondola was moored outside, awaiting their command. A gondola with a cabin swathed in richly embroidered fabric and soft velvet cushions within. And what followed was magical. Kouga didn't just point out the sights; he entertained her with stories that entranced her.

The palazzo mocenigo, where Lord Byron had stayed and where one of his many distraught mistresses threw herself from a balcony. The debtor's prison cell from which Casanova contrived a daring escape. the rialto where Shakespeare's shy lock walked.

His beautiful voice slowly turned husky with hoarseness, and captured in that haze of romantic imagery she smiled dreamily, sensing his deep love and pride in the city of his birth, reaching up to him to kiss him and meet those dark deep-set eyes with a bubbling assurance she had never experienced in male company before. At one point they glided to a halt in a quiet side canal to be served champagne and strawberries by a sleepy-eyed but smiling waiter.

"You're a fake, cara mia," Kouga breathed mockingly then. "You say you don't want romance, but you revel in every slushy embellishment I can provide."

"I'm not a fake. Why can't we have one perfect night? No strings, no ties, no regrets?"

"I'll make you a bet—a sure-fire certainty," Kouga murmured with silken assurance.

"Whatever happens tonight, I'll meet you tomorrow at three on the Ponte Della Guerra. You will be there."

"Tomorrow doesn't exist for us," she returned dismissively, not even grasping at that point that he might understand her better than she understood herself, that almost the minute she was away from him she would want to be back with him, no matter what the risk.

"Take me home," she told him then, impatient of the deeply inhibiting need to keep her hands off him in public.

"Where are you staying?"

"Your home..."

"We'll have breakfast together—"

"I'm not hungry."

He had stared steadily down at her. "You know nothing about me."

"I know I want to be with you...I know you want to be with me...what more do I need to know?"

A spasm of stark pain infiltrated Ayame as she recalled that foolish question. It shot her right back to the present, where fearful uncertainty and frustration ruled. At that moment she could not bear to relive the final hours she had spent with Kouga in Venice. And she was tormented by the awareness that her own behavior that night had been far more reckless, provocative and capricious than she had ever been prepared to admit in the years since.

The door opened without warning. Taken by surprise, Ayame scrambled awkwardly off the bed. Thrusting the door closed again, Kouga surveyed her, sensual mouth curling as he scanned the shabby shrunken jeans. "I always used to believe that a woman without vanity would be an incredible find. Then fate served me with you," he imparted grimly. "Now I know better."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ayame snapped defensively.

"You'll find out. Sloth in the vanity department won't be a profitable proposition." his frowning attention falling on the large framed photo, Kouga strode across the room to lift it from the cabinet. There was a stark little silence. He was very still, his chiseled profile clenched taut.

"You sleep with a picture of Houjo by your bed?" he breathed a tinge unevenly, a slightly forced edge to the enquiry that thickened his accent.

"Why not...? We're still very close." Ayame saw nothing strange in that admission, particularly when her mind was preoccupied with more pressing problems. She drew in a sharp breath. " Kouga...I don't know what's going on here. This whole situation is so crazy; I feel...I feel like Alice in wonderland after she went through the looking glass!"

"You astonish me. In every depiction I have ever seen Alice sported fabulous long curly hair and a pretty dress. The resemblance is in your mind alone."

Ayame groaned. "Now you're being flippant. From my point of view you are acting like a man who has escaped from an asylum—"

"That is because you have an extremely prosaic outlook," Kouga delivered softly. "You cannot grasp the concept of revenge because you yourself would consider revenge a waste of time and effort. I too am practical, but I warn you, I also have great imagination and a constitutional inability to live with being bested by anyone. Setting the police on your trail wouldn't have given me the slightest satisfaction —"

"The...the police?" Ayame stressed with a look of blank astonishment.

Kouga flicked her shrewd, narrow-eyed glance, eyes black and cold as a wintry night. "You play the innocent so well. I can ever understand why. You were far from home. You felt secure in the belief that you would never be identified, never be traced, and never be punished for your dishonesty—"

"I don't know what the blazes you're talking about!" Ayame spluttered. "My... dishonesty?"

"But you miscalculated...the role of victim is not for me," Kouga declared. "And now it's your turn to savor the same experience. A flare for the prosaic will be of no benefit whatsoever in the weeks to come."

"I've got a lot more staying power than you think!" Ayame fired back, determined to stand up to him. "So why don't you tell me why you're making crazy references to the police and my supposed dishonesty?"

Kouga sent her a winging glance of derision. "Why waste my breath? I prefer to wait until you get tired of pretending and decide to make a pathetic little confession about how temptation got the better of you!"

"I can hardly confess to something I haven't done!" Ayame objected in vehement frustration. Ignoring that fierce protest, Kouga lifted up a sheet of the fax paper, directing his attention to the business address of the stud farm at the top. 'Houjo's place,' he registered grimly.

"So it was Houjo you got in touch with."

"I didn't tell Houjo anything...I just wanted to know who you really were—not an unreasonable wish when I find myself married to a man who hasn't told me one single word of truth!" Ayame shot at him in ringing condemnation.

"But you couldn't wait to get married to me," Kouga reminded her with gentle irony "and, I, who have never felt the tiniest urge to give up my freedom, was equally eager in this instance to see the legal bond put in place."

"Because now you think you've got me where you want me."

Kouga regarded her with hard intensity. His arrogant dark head tipped back. Eyes hard as diamonds raked her defiant face.

"Houjo's still your lover, isn't he?"

"That's none of your business...in fact if I had a lover for every different day of the week; it would be none of your business!" Ayame slung back.

"No?" Kouga said softly.

"No!" as her temper rode higher, Ayame was indifferent to the menace of that velvet-soft intonation.

Kouga shifted a lean dark hand with fluid grace and eloquence. "Even the suspicion that you could be contemplating infidelity will be grounds for separation. You see, although I have laid it all before you in very simple terms, you still fail to appreciate that I hold every card. You cannot afford to antagonize a husband you need to retain."

Ayame shivered with anger, outraged by that, "very simple terms", which suggested she was of less than average intelligence. "The price could well be too high—"

"But it has to be high, and more than you want to pay...how could I enjoy this otherwise?" Kouga countered, the dark planes of his strikingly handsome features bearing a look of calm enquiry.

As her green eyes flashed with sheer fury, Kouga shot her a provocative smile.

In that instant, Ayame lost her head. Temper blazing, she stalked forward and lifted a hand with which to slap that hateful smile into eternity. With a throaty sound of infuriating amusement, Kouga sidestepped her. Closing two strong hands round her narrow ribcage, he lifted her clean off her feet and tumbled her down onto the bed behind her.

**Additional Notes:**

**Miss Havisham** is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel, _Great Expectations_ . She is a wealthy spinster who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place."

Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties. However, it is also indicated that her long life away from the sunlight has in itself aged her, and she is said to look like a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton, with moving eyes.

**N/A: **Well… a little Cliffy…. What can I say? =D…. I told you guys I was gonna be back soon… I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review and tell me what you think is going to happen! See ya soon!

XOXO

Sahora


	17. The vengeful husband 6

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Six

Breathless and stunned as Kouga captured her furiously flailing hands in one of his, Ayame whispered in outrage, "what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not thinking right now," Kouga confided, luxuriant lashes low on liquid golden eyes of sensual appraisal as he scanned the riot of bright curls on her small head. "I'm wondering how long your hair will get in six months... you'll grow it for me, just as you will do so many other things just for me—"

"Dream on!"

Confident eyes gleamed down into scorching green.

As Kouga slowly lowered his lean, well-built body down onto hers, a jolt of sexual awareness, as keen and sharp as an electric shock, run through Ayame. The sensation made her even more determined to break free.

Kouga banded both arms more fully round her violently struggling figure. "Calm down...you'll hurt yourself!" he urged impatiently.

"You are in the wrong position to tell me to do that!" Ayame warned breathlessly.

"Assault would be grounds for separation too," Kouga informed her indolently.

Ayame's knee tingled. She, who had never in her entire life hurt another human being, now longed to deliver a crippling blow. Kouga contemplated her with almost scientific interest, making no attempt to protect himself. "I want to hurt you!" she suddenly screeched at him in driven fury.

"But this crumbling pile of bricks and mortar stands between you and that desire," Kouga guessed with galling accuracy. "it will be interesting to see how much you will tolerate before you snap and surrender."

Ayame's blood ran cold at that unfeeling response.

"You'll play the whore in my bed for the sake of this house...but then what you've already done once should come even more easily a second time," Kouga surmised icily.

"You're talking rubbish, because I'll never sleep with you...I will never sleep with you again!" in a wild movement of repudiation, Ayame garnered the strength to tear herself free. But Kouga had frighteningly fast reflexes. With a rueful sigh over her obstinacy, he snapped long fingers round her shoulder before she could move out of reach, and simply tipped her back into his arms.

"Of course you will," he countered levelly then, brilliant dark eyes locked to her furiously flushed face.

"I won't!" Ayame swore.

As Kouga slowly anchored her back to the mattress with his superior body weight, the all pervasive heat of his big, powerful frame engulfed her limbs in a drugging paralysis. Momentarily Ayame forgot to struggle. She also forgot to breathe.

Kouga angled down his arrogant dark head and tasted her soft mouth with a devastatingly direct hunger that shot right down to her toes. Her lips burned; her thighs trembled. She looked up at him in complete shock, her mind wiped clean of thought. But her heart pounded as if she was fighting for her life, her pupils dilated, and her breath coming in tiny frantic pants. She collided with the blaze of sexual challenge in his gaze and it was as if he had thrown the switch on her self-control. Dear heaven, she loved it when he looked at her like that...

Deep down inside, she melted with terrifying anticipation of the excitement to come. Her breasts stirred inside her cotton bra, nipples peaking with painful suddenness into taut, straining buds. Kouga shifted and she felt the hard, masculine thrust of his erection against her pelvis. She quivered, her spine arching as her yielding body flooded with liquid heat and surrender. Neither one of them heard the soft rap on the bedroom door.

His dark eyes burned gold with fierce satisfaction. He rimmed her parted lips with the tip of his tongue, teasing, taunting, the warmth of his breath fanning her, locking her into breathless intimacy.

Every atom of her being was desperate for his next move, the moist, sensitive interior of her mouth aching for his penetration.

"Fight me..." Kouga instructed huskily. "After all the fun of the chase, an easy victory would be a real disappointment."

Almost simultaneously, a loud knock thudded on the sturdy door. Ayame flinched and jerked up her knee in fright, accidentally connecting with Kouga's anatomy in an unfortunate place. As he wrenched back from her in stunned pain and incredulity Ayame cried, "oh, no...gosh, I'm sorry!" and she reeled off the bed like a drunk, frantically smoothing down her rumpled sweater and striving to walk in a straight line to the door.

"Is Kouga with you, signora?" Hakkaku enquired levelly. "The helicopter has arrived early."

Hearing a muffled groan from somewhere behind her, Ayame coughed noisily to conceal the sound, and with crimson cheeks she muttered defensively, "I don't know where he is...and we can't leave yet anyway. I have hens to feed."

"Hens..." Hakkaku echoed, and nodded very slowly at that information.

Closing the door again, and tactfully not looking in Kouga's direction, Ayame whispered in considerable embarrassment, "are you all right, Kouga?"

Kouga gritted something that didn't sound terribly reassuring in his own language.

"I'll get you a glass of water," Ayame proffered, full of genuine remorse. "It was an accident...honestly, it was—"

"Bitch..." Kouga ground out with agonized effort.

Ayame withdrew a step. The silence thundered.

"I'll see you later," she muttered curtly. "right now, I've got work to do."

"We're flying to Venice!" Kouga shot at her rawly.

Only then did Ayame also recall the appointment she had made at the bank. Checking her watch, she emitted a strangled groan and took flight.

Half an hour later, having mucked out Nero's stable, Ayame mustered the courage to enter the poultry coop. Henrietta the hen, who regarded every human invasion as a hostile act, gave her a mean look of anticipation.

"Please, Henrietta, not today," Ayame pleaded as she hurriedly filled a bowl with eggs, her thoughts straying helplessly back to Kouga and the excruciating awareness that he could still rip away her defenses and make her agonizingly vulnerable.

She was so desperately confused by the emotions flailing her. She knew now that prior to the revelation of Kouga's real identity she had grown to trust him, like him, even. She had reveled in his sophisticated cool at Sumiko's party, his seeming protectiveness, even the envious looks of other women.

Dear god, how pathetic she had been, and now she felt gutted, absolutely gutted by the most savage sense of loss and bewilderment, and quite incapable of comprehending what was going on inside her own head. And as for her wretched body...? Recalling that kiss on the bed, reliving the shameless and eager anticipation which had flamed through her, Ayame hated herself. Kouga had been taunting her, humiliating her with her own weakness. The tables had been turned with a vengeance, she acknowledged painfully.

For hadn't she foolishly believed for the space of one night three years ago that she, too, could treat sex as a casual experience for which pleasure would be the only price? Hadn't she been bitterly conscious that night in Venice that she was still a virgin? Hadn't she been rebelling against her own image? Hadn't she longed to taste the power of being a sexually aware and sexually appealing woman?

And hadn't the idea of throwing off her inhibitions far from home been tempting? And hadn't she known the same moment Kouga melted her bones with one passionate kiss that she wanted to go to bed with him and forever banish the demeaning memory of her sterile, sexless relationship with Houjo?

And, worse, hadn't she thrown herself at Kouga at every opportunity, stubbornly evading his every attempt to slow the pace of their intimacy? All that champagne on top of her medication had left her bereft of every inhibition. For so long she had used the alcohol in her veins as an excuse. But the imagery that now assailed Ayame in split-second shattering technicolor frames, the undeniably shocking memories of how she had treated Kouga that night, now filled her with choking shame.

She had never once allowed herself to remember exactly what she had done to Kouga in that bedroom. She had been in the grip of a wanton hunger, a hunger fanned to white-hot heat by the knowledge that this beautiful, gorgeous, sophisticated guy was weak with lust for her. She hadn't wanted him to suspect that he was her first lover...and she had gone to indecent lengths not to give him the smallest grounds for that suspicion.

As a pained moan of mortification escaped Ayame under the assault of those memories, Henrietta jabbed a vicious beak into her extended hand.

With a startled yelp of pain, Ayame exited backwards from the coop, her dogs barking frantically at her heels.

"sta zitto!" that command slashed through the air like a whip.

Ayame twisted round in dismay. In the light of her recent thoughts she was truly appalled to see Kouga poised on the path several feet away. Her face flamed. There he was, six feet four inches of staggeringly attractive, sleek and powerful masculinity, luxuriant black hair smooth, charcoal-grey suit shrieking class and expensive tailoring. But, disconcertingly, Ayame's defiant subconscious threw up a much more disturbing image of Kouga, sprawled gloriously naked across white sheets, a magnificent vision of golden skinned male perfection, and a life-sized fantasy toy entirely at her mercy.

Far, far too late had she learnt that Kouga had inspired her with something infinitely more dangerous than desire. He would laugh longest and loudest if he ever realized that truth. Suddenly sick with pain and regret at her own stupidity, Ayame twisted her bright head away under the onslaught of those fiercely intelligent dark eyes.

As humpf and bert groveled ingratiatingly round his feet, Kouga scanned Ayame 's bedraggled appearance. Her jeans were streaked with dirt, her sweater liberally adorned with pieces of straw.

Dawning disbelief in his grim appraisal, he breathed with admirable restraint, "you have exactly ten minutes to change and board the helicopter."

"I can't!" Ayame protested, her evasive eyes whipping back in his general direction. "I have to go to the bank—"

"Why? Are you planning to rob it?" Kouga enquired sardonically. "If I was your bank manager, nothing short of an armed assault would persuade me to advance you any further credit!" Ayame compressed her lips in a mutinous line.

"No bank," said Kouga "we have a take-off slot to make at the airport."

"I can't miss this appointment—"

Kouga caught her by the elbow as she attempted to stalk past him.

"You're bleeding...what have you done to yourself?" he demanded.

Ayame flicked an irritable glance down at the angry scratch oozing blood on the back of her hand. "It's nothing. Henrietta's always attacking me."

"Henrietta?"

"Queen of the coop—the hen with attitude. I ought to wring her manic neck, but she'd come back and haunt me. In a strange way, I'm sort of fond of her," Ayame admitted grudgingly. "She's got personality."

Kouga's intent dark eyes now held a slightly dazed aspect. He was no Einstein on the subject of hens, she registered.

Ayame took advantage of his abstraction to pull free. "I'll be back before you know it...I promise!" she slung over her shoulder as she sped off.

It took her ten minutes to change into the tweed skirt and tailored blouse she always wore to the bank. Studiously ignoring the helicopter sitting on the front lawn, and the pilot pacing up and down beside it, she jumped into the land rover and rattled off down the drive.

Two hours later, having been to the bank, and then arranged for a local farmer to pick up and stable Nero, Ayame walked into Dia's kitchen to ask her to look after the dogs, feed the hens from a safe distance and keep an eye on the folly.

Shiori bounced up into her mother's arms. Ayame studied her daughter's clear dark eyes, smooth golden skin and ebony curls. A sinking sensation curdled her stomach. From her classic little nose to her feathery but dead level brows, Shiori looked so like her father.

Ayame buried her face in her daughter's springy hair and breathed in the fresh, clean scent of her child while she fought to master emotions and fears that were dangerously near to the surface. In fact, all she wanted to do at that instant was collapse into floods of overwrought tears, and the knowledge appalled her.

"Hakkaku's been down twice to see if you're here...talk about fussing!" Dia told her above the toddler's animated chatter. "What's all this about you going to Italy?"

"Don't ask," Ayame advised flatly. "I've just been to the bank. My bank manager says he's not a betting man."

"I could've told you that without seeing him. He's so miserable, he wouldn't bet on the sun rising tomorrow!"

"He said that in six months' time, when I actually inherit, it'll be different, but that it would be wrong to allow me to borrow more now on the strength of what are only expectations." that Kouga had made the same forecast right off the top of his superior head infuriated Ayame.

"I'm really sorry..." Dia's eyes, however, remained bright with curiosity. "But if you've got five minutes could you possibly tell me where the swanky limo and the helicopter have come from?"

"They belong to Kouga."

"So he was a dark horse. How very strange! People usually pretend to be more than they are rather than less than they are. Was Akane right, after all? Has he married you to gain a British passport?" Dia pressed with a frown. "Why all the heavy secrecy? He's not one of these high-flying international criminals, is he?"

If Kouga had been a criminal, the police might just have been able to take him away, Ayame thought helplessly. But then that wouldn't have suited her either. No matter how obnoxious he was, she needed to hang onto her husband for the next six months. What shook her even more at that moment was the sudden shattering awareness that in spite of the manner in which Kouga was behaving, the threat of him disappearing altogether made her feel positively sick and shaky.

" Ayame...?" Dia prompted.

She averted her attention from her friend. "There was a confidentiality clause in our prenuptial contract. I'd like to tell you everything," she lied, because there was no way she wanted to tell a living soul about how stupid she had been, "but I can't... will you look after the folly while I'm away?"

"Of course I will. I'll move in. Don't look so glum, Ayame...six months won't be that long in going by."

But the folly might well be repossessed long before those six months was up. Dia's purchase of the gate lodge had bought some time, by paying off the most pressing debts against the estate, but Ayame was still a couple of months behind with the mortgage repayments.

She drove back up to the house and clambered out. Kouga emerged from the entrance, strong, dark face rigid, dark eyes diamond-hard with exasperation.

"Have you any idea what time it is?" he launched at her.

Shiori skipped forward. She was unconcerned by that greeting. She had grown up with a grandfather who bawled the length of the room at everybody, and volume bothered her not at all. She extended a foot with a carefully pointed toe for Kouga's inspection.

"See...pretty," she told Kouga chirpily.

"accidenti..." Kouga began, reluctantly tearing his attention from Ayame to focus with a frown on the tiny child in front of him.

"If you want peace, admire her frilly socks."

"I beg your pardon?" Kouga breathed grittily.

"Shiori..." Ayame urged, holding out her hand.

But her daughter was stubborn. Her bottom lip jutted out. She wasn't used to being ignored. In fact, Ayame reflected, if Shiori had a fault, it was a pronounced dislike of being ignored.

"Has you dot pretty socks?" Shiori demanded somewhat aggressively of Kouga.

"No, i haven't!" Kouga ground out in fierce exasperation.

There was no mistaking that tone of rejection. Shiori's eyes grew huge and then flooded with tears. A noisy sob burst from her instantaneously.

Ayame swept up her daughter to comfort her. "You really are a cruel swine," she condemned feverishly. "She's only a baby... and if you think I'm traveling to Italy with someone who treats my child like that, you're insane!"

Discovering that even the loyal Hakkaku, who had come to an uneasy halt some feet away, was regarding him in shocked surprise, Kouga felt his blunt cheekbones drench with dark color. He strode back into the house in Ayame's furious wake.

"I'm sorry...I'm not used to young children," he admitted stiltedly.

"That's no excuse—"

"Bad man!" Shiori sobbed accusingly from the security of her mother's arms.

"Never mind, darling." Ayame smoothed her daughter's tumbled curls.

"You could try contradicting her—"

"She'd know I was lying."

But, mollified by the apology and the certain awareness that Kouga had just enjoyed an uncomfortable learning experience, Ayame went back outside and climbed into the helicopter.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Is she asleep?" Kouga skimmed a deeply cautious glance into the sleeping compartment of his private jet to survey the slight immobile bump on the built-in divan, his voice a positive whisper in which prayer and hope were blatant and unashamed.

Ayame tiptoed out into the main cabin, her face grey with fatigue. In all her life she had never endured a more nightmare journey.

Shiori had been sick all the way to London in the helicopter. The long wait in the V.I.P. lounge until the jet could get another take-off slot had done nothing to improve the spirits of a distressed, over-tired and still nauseous little girl. Shiori had winged, cried, thrown hysterical tantrums on the carpet beneath Kouga's utterly stricken and appalled gaze, and generally conducted herself like the toddler from hell.

"She's never behaved like that before," Ayame muttered wearily for about the twentieth time.

By now impervious to such statements, Kouga sank down with a shell-shocked aspect into a comfortable seat. Then he sat forward abruptly, an aghast set to his lean, dark features.

"Will she wake up again when we land?"

"Heaven knows..." Ayame was afraid to make any more optimistic forecasts, but maternal protectiveness prompted her to speak up in further defense of her daughter. "Shiori 's not used to being sick. She likes a secure routine, her own familiar things around her," she explained "everything's been strange to her, and then when she was hungry and we could only offer her foreign food—"

"That was definitely the last straw," Kouga recalled with a shudder. "I can still hear those screams. Per meravig-lia...what a temper she has! And so stubborn, so demanding! I had no idea that one small child could be that disruptive. As for the embarrassment she caused me—"

"All right...all right!" Ayame groaned in interruption as she collapsed down into the seat opposite.

"Let me tell you, it is no trivial matter to have to trail a child screaming that I am a bad man through a crowded airport!" Kouga slammed back at her in wrathful recollection. "And whose fault was that? Who allowed that phrase to implant in the poor child's head? What I have suffered this evening would have taxed the compassion of a saint!"

Ayame closed her aching eyes. A policeman, clearly alerted by a concerned member of the public, had intervened to request that Kouga identify himself. Then a man with a camera and a nasty raucous laugh had taken a photo of them.

The flash of the powerful camera had scared Shiori. Ayame had been shaken, it not having previously occurred to her that Kouga might be a target for such intrusive press attention. Bereft even of the slight protection that might have been offered by Hakkaku, who had left the folly in the limousine, Kouga had seethed in controlled silence. A saint he was not, but he had made a sustained effort to assist her in comforting and calming Shiori.

Kouga released his breath in a stark hiss. "However, the original fault was of my own making. When I demanded an immediate departure from your home, I took no account of the needs of so young a child. It was too late in the day to embark on such a journey."

Kicking off her shoes, Ayame curled her legs wearily beneath her. Such a concession was of little comfort to her now. She was wrung out.

"But this is our wedding night," Kouga reminded her, as if that was some kind of excuse.

Ayame didn't even have enough energy left to expel a grizzly laugh at that announcement. She sagged into the luxurious comfort of the seat and rested her head back to survey him with shadowed green eyes.

The sight of Shiori asleep and the sound of silence appeared to have revived Kouga. His dark eyes glittered with restive energy. He looked neither tired nor under strain, but he was no longer quite so immaculate, she noted, desperate to find comfort in that minor show of human fallibility. He now had a definable five o'clock shadow on his hard jaw line. He had also loosened his tie and undone the top button of his shirt to reveal the strong brown column of his throat. And, if anything, he looked even more devastatingly attractive than he had looked at the altar, she acknowledged, and instantly despised herself for noticing.

With great effort, Ayame mustered her thoughts and breathed in deep. "I have the right to know why you're doing this to me, Kouga," she told him yet again.

"But what have I done?" an ebony brow elevated. "I agreed to marry you and have I not done so?"

Ayame groaned in unconcealed despair. "Kouga...please! I hate games. If I'd had the time and the peace at the folly...if I hadn't been in so much shock at your threats...I wouldn't have allowed you to browbeat and panic me into this trip at such short notice."

"I planned it that way," Kouga admitted, with the kind of immovable calm that made her want to tear him to pieces.

As her temper flared, color burnished her cheeks and her eyes sparked with the fire of her frustration. "You still have to tell me why you're doing this to me!" Ayame reminded him with fierce emphasis. "And if you don't, I will—"

"Yes...what will you do?" Kouga interposed deflating. "Fly back to the UK alone and accept the loss of that house on which you place such value?"

It was the same threat which had intimidated Ayame into acquiescence that afternoon. But she was now beyond being silenced. "You insinuated that I had done something dishonest that night in Venice...and that is an outrageous untruth."

"Theft is a crime. It is never acceptable. But when theft is linked to deliberate deception, it is doubly abhorrent and offensive." Kouga delivered that condemnation with unblemished gravity.

Ayame's temples were beginning to pound with tension again. Her strained eyes locked to his cold, dark gaze. "Let me get this s-straight," she whispered, her voice catching in her throat "you are actually accusing me of having stolen something from you that night?"

"My overnight guests don't as a rule use a small rear window as an exit," Kouga responded very dryly. "I was downstairs within minutes of the alarm going off!"

Ayame's face flamed with chagrin at the reminder of the manner in which she had been forced to leave his apartment. She had crept out of his bed while he was still asleep. When that horrible shrieking alarm had sounded as she'd climbed out of the window, she had panicked. Dying a thousand deaths in her embarrassment, she had raced down the narrow alley beyond at supersonic speed.

"For heaven's sake, I just wanted to leave quietly... but I couldn't get your blasted front door open!"

"Not without the security code," Kouga conceded. "It would only have opened without the code if there had been a fire or if I had shut down the system. I was surprised that a thief ingenious enough to beat every other security device in that apartment and break into my safe should make such a very clumsy departure."

"Break into your safe," Ayame repeated, wide-eyed, weakened further by the revelation that this insane man she had married believed she was not only guilty of having stolen from him but also equal to the challenge of cracking open a safe.

"As a morning-after-the-night-before experience, it was unparalleled," Kouga informed her sardonically.

"I've never stolen anything in my life...I wouldn't!" it was a strangled plea of innocence, powered by strong distaste. "As for breaking into a safe, I wouldn't even know where to begin!" Ayame emphasized, eyes dark with disbelief that he could credit otherwise.

Kouga searched her shaken face with shrewd intensity and slowly moved his arrogant dark head in reluctant admiration. "You're even more convincing than I expected you to be."

In an abrupt movement, Ayame uncoiled her legs and sprang upright to stare down at him.

"You've got to believe me...for heaven's sake...if someone broke into that apartment and stole from you as that day was dawning, it certainly wasn't me!"

"no, I made the very great misjudgment of taking the thief home with me so that she could do an easier inside job," Kouga commented with icy exactitude, his strong jaw clenching. "And in a sense you're right; it wasn't you. You wore a disguise—"

"Disguise?" Ayame broke in weakly.

"You made the effort to look like a million dollars that night. You had to look the part."

"Kouga —"

"You gate crashed an elite social function attended by some very wealthy people and were careful not to draw too much attention to yourself," Kouga continued grimly, his expressive mouth hard as iron. "you refused to identify yourself in any way and you ensured that I brought you home with me...after all, with the number of staff around your chances of contriving to steal anything from the palazzo were extremely slim."

"I didn't do it...do you hear me?" Ayame almost shrieked at him. "I didn't do it!"

"But you've already confessed that you did steal and sell the ring. Or had you forgotten that reality?"

Ayame's lashes fluttered in bewilderment. Left bereft of breath by that staggering assurance, she pressed a weak hand to her damp brow and tottered backwards into her seat again

WEEELLLLLL hello! How are you everybody? A new chapter has come and now there are even more questions…. What a mean girl am I right?

I'm working on the next chapter, don't worry! It'll be here soon! Please leave a nice review and let me know what u think about this chapter!

XOXO

Sahora


	18. The vengeful husband 7

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Seven

"Don't you recall that sleepy and foolish little confession at the inn?" Kouga prompted with a scathing look of derision "you admitted that the sale of an antique ring financed roof repairs for your family home and indeed may well have staved off the enforced sale of that home."

"It was a ring which was stolen from your safe?" Ayame breathed shakily, belatedly making that connection. "But that's just a stupid coincidence. The ring that my father sold belonged to my family!"

"The Adorata ring is stolen and only a few months later the Uno contrive to rescue their dwindling fortunes by the judicious discovery and sale of another ring?" Kouga jibed, unimpressed by her explanation. "There was no other ring! And, since your family estate is still in financial hot water, you must've sold the Adorata for a tithe of its true worth!"

"I've never heard of this ador-whatever ring that you're talking about, nor have I been involved in any way in either stealing or selling it!" Ayame's taut voice shook, her growing exhaustion biting deep.

"You were wise enough to wait a while before selling it and you ensured that it was a private sale. Now I hope you also have sufficient wit to know when your back is up against a brick wall," Kouga spelt out icily. "I want the name of the buyer. And you had better hope and pray for your own sake that I am able to reclaim the Adorata without resorting to legal intervention!"

"It wasn't your wretched ring. I swear it wasn't!" Ayame protested sharply, appalled by his refusal even to stop and take proper account of her arguments in her own defense.

"I don't know who bought it because my father insisted on dealing with the sale. He was a very proud man. He didn't want anybody to know that he was so short of money that he had to sell an heirloom—"

"Why waste my time with these stupid stories?" Kouga subjected her to a hard scrutiny, his contempt and his impatience with her protests palpable. "I despise liars. Before I put you back out of my life, you will tell me where that ring is...or you will lose by it."

It occurred to Ayame then that no matter what she did with Kouga, he intended her to lose by it. He had hemmed her in with so many threats she felt trapped. And the shattering revelation that he believed her to be a thief equal to safe-cracking just seemed to stop her weary brain functioning altogether.

Only two thoughts stayed in her mind. Kouga might still be walking around as if he was sane, but he couldn't be. And possibly he had been watching too many movies in which incredibly immoral calculating women seduced the hero and then turned on him with evil intent. Safe-cracking? A glazed look in her eyes, Ayame contemplated the fact that she couldn't even operate a washing machine without going step by painful step through the instructions...

"Do you still find it magical?" Kouga demanded, above the roar of the motorboat which had collected them from Marco polo airport to waft them across the lagoon into the city.

A woman in a waking dream, Ayame gazed out on the Grand Canal. The darkness was dispelled by the lights in the beautiful medieval buildings and on the other craft around them. The grand, sweeping waterway throbbed with life. it was like traveling inside a magnificent painting, she thought privately. She assumed that they were heading to his apartment, but as far as she was concerned they could happily spend the rest of the night getting there.

When the boatman chugged into a mooring at the palazzo d'oro, with its splendid renaissance facade, Ayame was astonished. "Why are we stopping here?"

"This is my home," Kouga informed her.

"But it c-can't be..." Ayame stammered.

Deftly detaching Shiori's solid little body from her arms, Kouga stepped out onto the covered walkway semi-screened from the canal by an elaborate run of pillars and arches. At the entrance to the palazzo, an older woman in an apron stood in readiness. She made clucking sounds and extended sturdy arms to receive the sleeping child.

Ayame snatched at Kouga's hand and stepped out onto the walkway.

"Who's that?"

"My sister Ilaria's old nursemaid. She will put Shiori to bed and stay with her."

"But I—"

As Kouga urged her into the spectacular entrance hall, with its glorious domed ceiling frescoes far above, Ayame stilled. "You can not live here—"

"My ancestors built the palazzo d'oro."

Just as Kouga finished speaking, a startling interruption occurred. Two enormous shaggy dogs loped noisily down the fantastic gilded staircase pursued by a shouting middle-aged manservant.

"Santo cielo" Kouga rapped out a sharp command that forestalled the threatening surge of boisterous animal greeting. The deerhounds fell back, tails drooping between their impossibly long legs, great narrow heads lowered, and doggy brown eyes pathetic in their disappointment.

The manservant broke into a flood of anxious explanation. Kouga turned back to Ayame, exasperation etched in his lean, strong features.

"What are they called?" Ayame prompted eagerly.

"Aristide and Zou Zou,' Kouga divulged reluctantly, his nostrils flaring "they belong to my sister."

"Aren't they gorgeous?" Ayame began to move forward to pet the two dogs.

As a pair of very long tails began to rise in response to that soft, encouraging intonation, Kouga closed an arm round his bride to restrain her enthusiasm. "No, they are not," he stressed meaningfully "they are undisciplined, unbelievably stupid and wholly unsuited to city life. But every time Ilaria goes away, she dumps them here."

As Kouga 's manservant gripped their jewel-studded collars to lead them away, the two dogs twisted their heads back to focus on Ayame with pleading eyes. She was touched to the heart.

"Are you hungry?" Kouga asked then.

"I couldn't eat to save my life."

'Then I will show you upstairs."

"If this is really your home," Ayame whispered numbly about halfway up the second flight.

"That means...that means that you were the host at the masked ball."

"You wouldn't let me tell you who I was. And since the ball invariably lasts until dawn, I could scarcely bring you back here for the remainder of the night. At the time, I had been using the apartment regularly while renovations were being carried out here."

"There's so much I don't know about you—"

"And now you have all the time in the world to discover everything you ever wanted to know" Kouga pointed out in a tone of bracing consolation.

"I don't think I want to find out any more."

"This has not been the most propitious of wedding days," Kouga conceded smoothly. "But I'm certain you have the resilience to rise above a somewhat difficult beginning. After all, cara mia...I'm prepared to be very generous."

Ayame gawped at him. "generous?"

"If you satisfy my demands, I will allow you to inherit that one million. I'm not a complete bastard. there are those who say that I am," Kouga admitted reflectively, "and I would concede that I am no bleeding heart, but I am always scrupulously fair in my dealings."

"Is that a fact?" Ayame passed no opinion because she didn't have the energy to argue with him. Passing down a corridor lined with fine oil paintings, Kouga flung open the door of a superb bedroom full of ornate gilded furniture. One stunned glance was sufficient to tell Ayame that in comparison Uno's folly offered all the comfort of a medieval barn in an advanced state of decay.

"Your luggage will be brought up."

"I want to see Shiori. Where is she?"

"In the nursery suite on the floor above. Most mothers would be grateful for a break from childcare on their wedding night."

"What is with this "wedding night" bit you keep on mentioning?" Ayame enquired with stilted reluctance.

Kouga treated her to a slow, sensual smile. Dark golden eyes of intent gleamed below luxuriant black lashes. "You are not that naive. Whatever else you may be, you are still a Wolf bride, and tonight in the time-honored tradition of my ancestors we will share that bed together."

Ayame thought about this nightmare day she had enjoyed at Kouga's merciless hands. She studied him in honest disbelief.

"You should congratulate yourself." his exquisitely expressive mouth quirked. "Only the memory of that incredibly passionate night we once shared persuaded me to go to the extremity of marrying you. The prospect of six sexually self-indulgent months played a major part in that decision."

"I can imagine," Ayame mumbled weakly, and she could.

Kouga saw life's every event in terms of profit and loss. Almost three years ago he had suffered a loss for which he had falsely blamed her. Now he planned to turn loss into vengeful profit between the bed sheets. It was novel, she conceded. But for a rogue male to whom everything probably came far too easily, anything that supplied a challenge would always be what he wanted most.

Dear heaven, had she been that exciting in bed? She had been imaginative, she was prepared to admit, but that night had been a one-off. Heady romance, bitter rebellion and fiery desire had combined with champagne to send her off the rails. She had lived out a never to be repeated kind of fantasy and lived on to regret every single second of her reckless misbehavior.

"I'll give you an hour to rediscover your energies and ponder the reality that a marriage that is not consummated is worthless in the eyes of the law."

"What are you talking about?"

"Aren't you aware that sex is an integral part of the marriage contract? And the lack of it grounds for annulment?"

Ayame's jaw dropped.

"You see, I'm not a complete bastard," Kouga contended, smooth as glass. "A complete bastard would have left you to sleep in ignorance and gone for non-consummation at the end of the six months."

Leaving her to reflect on that revelation of astounding generosity, Kouga strolled back out of the room.

That is one happy man, Ayame thought helplessly. An utterly ruthless male with the persistence of a juggernaut, punch-drunk on the belief that he had her exactly where he wanted her. He was destined to discover that he had a prolonged battle ahead of him.

Although she was currently at very low ebb, Ayame was by nature a fighter. a thief. He thought she was a thief. He genuinely believed that she had stolen that wretched ring with the stupid name. And, truth to tell, if it had been stolen the same night, he had some grounds for that suspicion. indeed, when that theft was combined with her flight at dawn, her status as a gatecrasher and her flat refusal to tell him who she was throughout the evening, she had to concede that his conviction that she was the guilty party was based on some pretty solid-looking facts.

However, those facts were simply misleading facts. Obviously she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Kouga wasn't the type of male likely to question his own judgment. In fact, unless she was very much mistaken, Kouga prided himself on his powers of logic and reasoning. That being so, for almost three years he had staunchly believed that she was the culprit. By now, the real thief and the ring had to be long gone.

Kouga's mistake, not hers.

In the meantime, only by finding some proof that the ring her father had sold had been a different ring entirely could she hope to defend herself. had her father kept any record of that sale? And what the heck was the use of wondering that when she was stuck in Venice and unable to conduct any sort of search? Why, oh, why had she allowed Kouga to steamroller her into flying straight to Italy? And the answer came back loud and clear. If she had refused, Kouga would have gone without her. Challenged at the very outset of their marriage, Kouga would have carried through on that threat.

An hour later, Kouga sauntered back into the marital bedroom and stopped dead only halfway towards the canopied bed.

Contented canine snores alerted him to the presence of at least one four-legged intruder. and there was no room for a bridegroom in the bed, vast as it was. Ayame laid dead centre, one arm curved protectively round her slumbering daughter, the other draped across two enormous shaggy backs.

Zou Zou was snoring like a train. Aristide opened his eyes, and in his efforts to conceal himself did a comic impression of a very large dog trying to shrink himself to the size of a chihuahua.

Pushing his head bashfully between his paws, perfectly aware that he was not allowed on the bed, he surveyed Kouga pleadingly, unaware that the child on the other side of the bed was his most powerful source of protection.

Kouga drew in a slow, steadying breath and backed towards the door very quietly. He had learnt considerable respect for the consequences of not letting sleeping toddlers lie... Ayame was nudged awake at half past six in the morning by the dogs.

After a brisk wash in her usual cold water in the en suite bathroom, she trudged downstairs in her checked pyjamas and old wool dressing gown, startling the dapper little manservant breakfasting in the sleek, ultra-modern kitchen on the ground floor. Beneath the older man's aghast gaze, she fed and watered the dogs and refused to allow him to interrupt his meal. She then insisted on charring two croissants and brewing some not very successful coffee for herself. She wrinkled her nose as she ate and drank. Cooking had never been her métier, but her digestion was robust.

Finding Shiori still soundly asleep when she returned to the bedroom, she succumbed to the notion of returning to bed to give her daughter a cuddle, but while in the act of waiting for the toddler to awaken naturally she contrived to drift off to sleep again.

The second time she woke up, she stretched luxuriantly. Then, as she recalled rising earlier, she was seized by instant guilt and wondered with all the horror of someone who never, ever had a lie-in what time it was. "It's a quarter past nine, cara mia," a deep, dark drawl responded to the anxious question she had unwittingly said out loud.

That reply so alarmingly close to hand acted like a cattle prod on Ayame. Eyes flying wide in dismay, she flipped over to her side to confront her uninvited companion. "Good heavens...a q-quarter past nine?" she stuttered. 'Where's Shiori?'

"Breakfasting upstairs in the nursery suite."

His clean-shaven jaw supported by an indolent hand, Kouga gazed down at Ayame's startled face with a slow, mocking smile that made her pulses race. Her shocked appraisal absorbed the width of his bare brown shoulders above the sheet. Instantly she knew that he wasn't wearing a stitch.

"This bed was busier than the rialto at high season last night," Kouga remarked.

"Shiori needed the security of being with me. she was too cranky to settle somewhere strange on her own," Ayame rushed to inform him, heart banging violently against her breastbone as she collided with flaring eyes as bright as shafts of golden sunlight in that lean, dark, devastating face.

"Were the dogs insecure too?"

"They cried at the door, Kouga! They were really pathetic..."

"I wonder if I should have tried getting down on all fours and howling. I could have pretended to be a werewolf," Kouga suggested, taking advantage of her confusion to snake out an imprisoning arm and hold her where she was before she could go into sudden retreat. "Then you would've had every excuse to tie me to the bed again."

Ayame turned a slow hot crimson. Every inch of skin above the collar of her pyjama top was infiltrated by that sweeping tide of burning color. Again! That single word was like a depth charge plunging into her memory banks to cause the maximum chaos.

And, worst of all, he was exaggerating. With the aid of his bow tie, she had only got as far as anchoring one wrist before laughter had got the better of her dramatic intentions.

"Speaking as a male who until that night had never, ever relinquished control in the bedroom, I was delightfully surprised by your creativity—"

"I was drunk!" Ayame hissed in anguished self-defense.

"With a passionate desire to live out every fantasy you had ever had. Yes, you told me." Kouga reminded her without remorse as he leant over her and long fingers flicked loose the button at her throat without her noticing. "You also told me that I was your dream lover...and you were undeniably mine. I don't have dream aspirations, but what I didn't know I was missing, I had in abundance that night, and since then no other woman has managed to satisfy me."

"You're not serious," Ayame mumbled shakily, mesmerized by the blaze of that golden gaze holding her own.

"So that is why you are here" Kouga confided with husky exactitude.

"I want to know why I find you so tormentingly attractive when my intelligence tells me that you are full of flaws."

"Flaws?"

"You don't give a damn about your appearance. You're untidy, disorganized and blunt to the point of insanity. You hack wood like a lumberjack and you let dogs sleep on my bed. And, strange as it is, I have to confess that none of those habits or failings has the slightest cooling effect on my libido..." lowering his imperious dark head on that admission, Kouga skimmed aside the loose-cut pyjama top to press his mouth hotly to the tiny pulse flickering beneath the delicate skin of her throat.

"Oh...what are you doing?" Ayame yelped.

Involuntarily immobilized by the startling burst of warmth igniting low in her belly, she gazed up apprehensively at Kouga as he lifted his head.

"Don't do that again," she muttered weakly, her voice failing to rise to the command level required for the occasion. "It makes me feel peculiar and we have to talk about things—"

"What sort of things?" Kouga enquired thickly.

"That wretched ring for a start—"

"No."

"I didn't steal it, Kouga! And you should be trying to find out who did!" Ayame told him baldly. His heated gaze cooled and hardened in the thumping silence.

Ayame gave him a weary, pleading look. "I wouldn't do something like that...and as soon as I get home I'll be able to prove that the ring my father sold wasn't yours!"

"What do you hope to gain from these absurd lies and promises?" Kouga demanded with raw impatience. "I know that you took the Adorata! It is not remotely possible that anyone else could have carried out that theft. An idiot would confirm your guilt on less evidence than I have!"

"Circumstantial evidence, Kouga...nothing more concrete"

"While you refuse to admit the truth, there's nothing to discuss." Kouga studied her flushed and frustrated face with smoldering dark golden eyes. With cool deliberation, he smoothed the tumbled curls from her brow. "What I want to do at this moment is make passionate love to you."

"No!"

Kouga let a teasing forefinger trail along the taut line of her mutinous lips, watched her shiver in shaken reaction to that contact. "Even when you want to?"

"I don't want to!"

Suddenly alarmingly short of breath, Ayame looked back at him. Little prickles of tormenting awareness were filling her with tension. She was shamefully conscious of the raw, potent power of his abrasive masculinity, and of its devastating effect on her treacherous body. Already her breasts felt heavy and full, her nipples wantonly taut. The silence pulsed.

"I don't! You think I'm a thief!" Ayame cried, as though he had argued with her.

Kouga's smile was pure charisma unleashed. "Possibly that's the most dangerous part of your attraction."

Thoroughly disconcerted by that suggestion, Ayame frowned.

And, in a ruthless play on her bewilderment, Kouga bent his well-shaped dark head and kissed her. He plundered her mouth like a warrior on the battlefield in a make-or-break encounter. She jerked as if fireworks were going off inside her. The hot, lustful thrust of his tongue electrified her. As she responded with all the answering hunger she could not suppress, nothing mattered to her but the continuance of that passionate assault.

In an indolent movement Kouga sat up and carried her with him. He pushed the top down off her shoulders and trailed it free of her arms, freeing her hands to rise and sink into his luxuriant black hair. He released her reddened mouth, burnished golden eyes dropping lower to take in the tip-tilted curves of her small breasts and the bold thrust of her rosy nipples.

"You are so perfect," he savored huskily. Perfect? Never, she thought, but in the pounding silence Ayame still found herself watching as he curved appreciative hands to her aching flesh. With a stifled moan, she shut her eyes tightly, but felt with every quivering fiber the shock-wave of shatteringly intense sensation as expert fingers toyed with the tender peaks. She trembled, her heartbeat thundering in her eardrums.

"dio..." Kouga drew in an audible breath. "You always do exactly what excites me most..."

With a distinct lack of cool, he pushed her back against the pillows and closed his mouth urgently to the source of his temptation. As he tugged at the shamelessly engorged buds with erotic thoroughness she flung her head back, every muscle tensing as a low, keening sound of excitement escaped her. With every carnal caress he sent an arrow of shooting fire to the tormenting ache between her trembling thighs.

Her fingers knotted tightly into the glossy thickness of his hair, holding him to her, desperately urging him on. A moan of impatience left her lips as he abandoned her breasts to tug up her knees and free her restive lower limbs from the pajama bottoms.

"Kiss me" she muttered feverishly then.

"Want me?" shimmering golden eyes welded to her darkened gaze and the longing she couldn't hide from him.

"How much?"

"Kouga..." she whispered pleadingly, shivering with need.

"I find you incredibly sexy, cam mia."

Rising over her, he slid a lean, hair-roughened thigh between hers and crushed her mouth with passionate fervor under his. There was no room for thought in her head.

Passion controlled her utterly. Her body writhed beneath his, a flood of hungry fire burning at the very heart of her. Feeling the bold promise of his manhood pulsing against her hip, she pushed against him in instinctive encouragement.

Kouga pulled back from her, eyes smoky with desire. "You're too impatient...the pleasure is all the keener when you wait for what you want. And didn't you make me wait that night?"

A tantalizing hand slowly smoothed over the tense muscles of her stomach. He listened to her suck in oxygen in noisy gasps of anticipation. "In fact, you pushed me right over the edge when I was least expecting it."

Instantly she was lost in that imagery. Kouga, helpless in her thrall, driven to satisfaction against his own volition, disconcerted, reacting by suddenly reasserting his masculine dominance and driving her crazy with desire. She reached up to him, finding his sensual mouth again for herself, parting her lips to the stabbing invasion of his tongue. He shuddered violently against her, his control slipping as he kissed her back with raw, hungry force.

His hand skated through the damp auburn curls crowning the apex of her thighs and discovered the satin sensitivity of the moist flesh beneath. Mastered by a need that overwhelmed every restraint, she felt her spine arch, her body opening to him as the terrible ache for satisfaction blazed up, making her whimper and writhe, hungrily craving what he had taught her to crave in a torment of excitement. "When you respond like that, all I can think about is plunging inside you," Kouga groaned, sliding between her thighs.

The hot, hard thrust of his powerful penetration took her breath away. Nothing had ever felt so good. Her whole being was centered on the feel of him inside her, boldly stretching and filling, and giving such intense pleasure she would have died had he stopped.

"you told me I was absolutely brilliant at this," Kouga reminded her, gazing down at her with a staggering mixture of lust laced with reluctant amusement as he plunged deeper still and watched her eyes close on a wave of electrified and utterly naked pleasure.

"Gosh, you're incredibly good at this too... you said, in such surprise. I wondered if you were going to score my technique on a questionnaire afterwards—"

"Shut up!" Ayame moaned with effort.

"You said that too."

She stared up at him; at a peak of such extraordinary excitement she was ready to kill him if he didn't move.

And Kouga vented a hoarse laugh. He knew how she felt. And his own struggle to maintain control was etched in his taut cheekbones, the sheen of sweat on his dark skin and the ragged edge to his voice. With a muffled groan of urgent satisfaction, he drove deeper into her yielding body. Her heart almost burst with the force of her own frantic response.

Mindless, she clung to him as he took her with a wild vigor that destroyed any semblance of control. Her release brought an electrifying explosion. As the paroxysms of uncontrollable pleasure overpowered her, her nails raked down his damp, muscular back.

Kouga cried out her name and shuddered over her, as lost in that world of physical sensation as she was.

The most unearthly silence reigned in the aftermath of that impassioned joining. Kouga disentangled himself and rolled over to a cooler part of the bed. Ayame stared fixedly at the footboard. Even before the last quaking of sated desire and intense pleasure faded, she felt rejected.

So you slept with him, a little voice said inside her blitzed brain.

Did you do it to make this a real marriage that couldn't be annulled? Did you do it to hang onto the folly? Or did you do it because you just couldn't summon up sufficient willpower to resist him? After all, you knew how fantastic he would be.

Ayame flipped her tousled head over to one side to anxiously scan Kouga. He looked back at her, his strikingly handsome face taut but uninformative, expressive eyes screened.

Ayame's throat closed over.

At that moment she wanted very, very badly to believe that she had sacrificed her body for the sake of her home. It might have been a morally indefensible move, but her pride could have lived with such a cold-blooded decision...

It would be an infinitely greater challenge to co-exist with the ghastly knowledge that she had made love with Kouga because she found him totally and absolutely irresistible, even when she ought to hate him... but, unhappily for her, that was the dreadful truth. And any denial of the fact would be complete cowardice.

It was equally craven to lie in the presence of the enemy behaving like a victim, drowning in defeat and loss of face. Ayame flinched from an image infinitely more shameful to her than any loss of control in Kouga's arms. It was unthinkable to let Kouga guess that making love with him could reduce her to such turmoil of painful vulnerability.

"Right," Ayame said flatly, galvanized into action by that awareness and abruptly sitting up with what she hoped was a cool, calm air of decision "now that we've got that out of the way, perhaps we can talk business."

"Business?" Kouga stressed in sharp disconcertion, complete incredulity flaring in his brilliant dark eyes.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Yes! It's me! I just wanted to start the week with a little chapter… As always, I hope you liked it, and if you want, leave a review…

See ya all!

XOXO

Sahora.


	19. The vengeful husband 8

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Eight

"Business," Ayame confirmed steadily.

"We have no mutual business interests to discuss," Kouga delivered rather drily.

"That's where you're wrong." her eyes gleamed at that dismissive assurance. "As you were so eager to point out yesterday, the Uno estate is still on the brink of bankruptcy." She breathed in deep.

"I only married you because I assumed that my bank manager would increase my overdraft limit once I explained to him about my godmother's will. However...he refused."

From beneath dense ebony lashes, Kouga surveyed her with something akin to unholy fascination.

"So as things stand," Ayame recounted tautly, "not only am I in no position to re-employ the staff laid off after my father's death, but I am also likely to have my home repossessed before that six months is even up."

"One small question," Kouga breathed in a slightly strained undertone. He was now engaged on a fixed surveillance of the elaborate plasterwork on the ceiling above. "Did you happen to mention my name to your bank manager?"

"What would I have mentioned your name for?" Ayame countered impatiently. "I told him that I'd got married but that my husband would be having nothing to do with the estate."

"Honesty is wonderful, but not always wise," Kouga remarked reflectively. "I doubt that you need worry about any imminent threat of repossession. If you're only a little behind on the mortgage repayments, it's unlikely."

"I disagree. I've had some very nasty letters on the subject already. Heavens, I'm scared to open my post these days!" Ayame admitted ruefully, thrusting bright curls from her troubled brow.

"Tell me, in a roundabout, extremely clumsy way, is it possible that you are trying to work yourself up to asking me for a loan?" Kouga enquired darkly.

"Where on earth did you get that idea? I wouldn't touch your money with a barge-pole!" Ayame told him in indignant rebuttal.

"But I need to go home to visit all the other financial institutions that might help. I have to find somewhere prepared to invest in the future of the folly!"

Kouga now surveyed her with thunderous disbelief. "That's a joke...isn't it?"

"Of course it's not a joke!" Ayame grimaced at the idea. "Why would I joke about something so serious?"

As Kouga sat up in one sudden powerful movement the sheet fell away from his magnificent torso. Outrage blazed in his dark eyes, his lean features clenched taut. "Are you out of your tiny mind?" he roared back at her, making her flinch in shock from such unexpected aggression. "I'm an extremely wealthy man...and as my wife, you dare to tell me that you plan to drag the Wolf name in the dirt by scuttling round the banking fraternity begging for a loan? Are you trying to make me a laughing-stock?"

Ayame gazed back at him in stunned immobility. That possibility hadn't occurred to her. Nor, at that instant, would the prospect have deprived her of sleep.

"accidenti..." Kouga swore crawly, thrusting back the sheet and springing lithely from the bed to appraise her with diamond-hard eyes of condemnation. "I now see that I have found a foe worthy of my mettle! You are one cunning little vixen! And if you dare put one foot inside the door of any financial institution, I will throw you out of my life the same day!"

A foe worthy of his mettle? An unearned compliment, Ayame conceded abstractedly, her attention wholly entrapped by the glorious spectacle of Kouga striding naked up and down the bedroom with clenched fists of fury. Gosh, he was gorgeous.

Glossy black hair, fabulous bone structure, eyes of wonderful vibrancy. Broad shoulders, powerful chest, slim hips, long, long legs. The whole encased in wonderful golden skin, adorned with muscles and intriguing patches of black curly hair. All male.

She looked away, cheeks hot, shame enfolding her. She was so physically infatuated with the man she couldn't even concentrate on arguing with him. It was utterly disgusting. "Ok"

Kouga snarled, further provoked by that seemingly stony and defiant silence. "This is the deal. I will take over temporary responsibility for all bills relating to the folly estate!"

Shaken by so unexpected not to mention so unwelcome a suggestion, Ayame turned aghast eyes on him. "No way...why would you want to do that?"

"I don't want to...but that arrangement would be preferable to placing an open cheque book into those hot, greedy little hands of yours! Porca miseria!" Kouga shot her an intimidating glower of angry derision. "The bed sheets are not even cooled before you start trying to rip me off again!"

He had a mind as complex as a maze, Ayame conceded, lost in wonder at such involved logic. He was so incredibly suspicious of her motives. All she had tried to do was stress how very urgently she needed to return home to sort out those problems with the estate, but Kouga had flown off on another tangent entirely. He honestly believed that she had just tried to blackmail him.

Admittedly, it should have dawned on her that he might be sensitive to the idea of his wife seeking to borrow money when he himself was filthy rich, but the reason it hadn't dawned on her was that she didn't feel remotely married to him.

"I don't want your rotten money...I've already told you that."

"Dio mio...you will not seek to borrow anywhere else!" Kouga asserted fiercely.

"That's not fair" Ayame protested.

"Who ever said that I would be fair?"

"You did..." Ayame said in a small voice.

Kouga froze at the reminder.

An electrifying silence stretched.

"Suddenly I have a great need for the calm, ordered atmosphere of my office!" Kouga bit out with scantily controlled savagery. He strode into the bathroom and sent the door crashing shut.

So that's the temper...wow!

The door flew open again. "Even in bed, don't you ever think of anything but that bloody house?" Kouga flung, in final sizzling attack. The door closed again.

Wow... Ayame thought again helplessly. He's so passionate when he drops the cool front. He slams doors like I do. He's a suspicious toad, so used to wheeling and dealing he can't take anything at face value. But he also thought she had put one over on him, she registered. The beginnings of a rueful smile tugged at the tense, unhappy line of her mouth.

What was the matter with her? She questioned as she slid out of bed. Why was she thinking such crazy thoughts? Why did she feel sort of disappointed that Kouga was planning to leave her? Why wasn't she feeling more cheerful at that prospect? She stared down at the empty chair where she had draped her clothes the night before.

With a frown, she finally noticed that her open suitcase had disappeared as well. She wandered into the dressing room and tugged open the unit doors to be greeted by male apparel on one side and on the other unfamiliar female garments. pyjama-clad, she knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. She opened it. He was in the shower.

"Where are my clothes, Kouga?" she called. The water went off. He rammed back the doors of the shower cubicle.

"I got rid of them" Kouga announced, raking an impatient hand through his dripping black hair and snatching up a towel.

"Rid of them?"

"Rather drastic, I know, but surely not a sacrifice?" Kouga gave her an expectant look. "Since you need lessons on how to dress. Porca miseria!" he grimaced, watched her face pale and telegraph hurt disbelief.

"That was tactless. But I just thought it would be easiest if I simply presented you with a new wardrobe. The clothes are in the dressing room. You won't even need to go shopping now."

Ayame's eyes prickled with hot, scratchy tears. She was appalled. Never had she felt more mortified. This was a member of the opposite sex telling her she looked absolutely awful in her own clothes, telling her that he, a man, knew more than she did about how she should be dressing. "How could you do that to me?" she gasped stricken, and fled.

"It's a gift...a surprise...most women would be over the moon!" Kouga fired back accusingly.

"Insensitive pig!" a sob tearing at her throat, Ayame threw herself back on the bed.

The mattress beside her gave with his weight.

"You have a beautiful face and an exquisite slender shape...but your clothes are all wrong." Kouga breathed huskily.

Ayame was humiliated and outraged by such smooth barefaced lying. She knew better than anyone that she wasn't remotely beautiful! Flipping over in a blind fury, she raised her hand and dealt him a stinging slap.

"Not...most...women," Kouga muttered half under his breath, like somebody learning a very difficult lesson. With a slightly dazed air, he pressed long, elegant fingers to the flaming imprint of her fingers etched across one hard cheekbone and blinked.

Instantly, Ayame crumbled with guilt. "I'm sorry...1 shouldn't have done that," she muttered brokenly "but you asked for it...you provoked me...go away!"

"I don't understand you—"

"I hate you...do you understand that?"

Ayame coiled away from him. She hurt so much inside she wanted to scream to let the pain out. She hugged herself tight. When Kouga put a hand on her shoulder, she twisted violently away. When he reached for one of her hands, she shook him off.

"I actually liked you before I realized who you were!" she suddenly slung at him in disgust. "I actually trusted you! Gosh, I've got great taste in men!"

"Haven't you already got what you wanted from me?" Kouga raked back at her in cold anger. "I have promised you my financial backing for the duration of our marriage. Your problems are over."

Ayame regarded him with bitter outrage. "I'm not something you can buy with your money."

Kouga shot her an icy unimpressed appraisal. "If you're not...what are you doing in my bed?"

There was no answer to that question. She couldn't even explain that to her own satisfaction, never mind his. And that he should throw her sexual surrender in her face made her curl up and die deep down inside.

She listened to him dressing, and she was so quiet she barely breathed.

Kouga forced himself under her notice again by coming to a halt two feet from the bed. Clad in a lightweight beautifully cut pearl-grey suit, he looked absolutely stupendous, but icily remote and intimidating...like someone who ate debtors five to a plate for breakfast.

But now she knew that his black hair felt like silk when she smoothed her fingers through it, that his smile was like hot sunlight after the winter and that even his voice trickled down her spine like honey and made her melt, she thought in growing agony.

"This is not how I thought things would be with us. I'm civilized...I'm very civilized" Kouga informed her with unfeeling cool. "We're supposed to be skimming along the surface of things and having a great time in bed. So tell me who bought the adorata ring and we'll get that little complication out of the way. Then there is hope that peace will break out."

"I've already told you that I did not take that ring," Ayame whispered shakily.

"And repetition of that claim has an excessively aggravating effect on my normally even temper," Kouga drawled, "we're at an impasse."

Ayame studied him, cold fascination holding her tight but pain piercing her like cutting shards of glass—that same pain bright and unconcealed in her eyes. "I can't believe that you're the same guy I met three years ago...I can't believe that we laughed and danced and you were just so romantic and warm and—"

"Stupid?" Kouga slotted in glacially, deep-set dark eyes hard as diamonds but a feverish flush accentuating the taut slant of his high cheekbones. "Absurd? Ridiculous? After all, outside my own elite circle, I wasn't streetwise enough to protect myself from a calculating little predator like you!"

Ayame was shaken by that response, dredged from her own self-preoccupation to finally think about how he must have felt when he'd believed he had been robbed by the woman he had spent the previous evening romancing in high style, the woman he had brought into his home, the woman he had made love to over and over again until they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms.

And for the very first time she recognized the raw, angry bitterness he had until now contrived to conceal from her. He was very proud, hugely self-assured. The discovery that the ring had gone could scarcely have failed to dent his male ego squarely where it hurt most. Heavens, what an idiot he must have felt, she registered, with a belated flood of understanding sympathy

"Kouga,.." she breathed awkwardly. "I—" Kouga vented a harsh laugh.

"You were clever, but not clever enough," he murmured with a grim twist of his mouth. "I was a very conservative guy, I was twenty-eight and I had never felt anything very much for any woman. But with you I felt something special—"

"s-something special?" Ayame broke in helplessly. Derision glittered in the look he cast her intent face.

"You could have got so much more out of me than one night if you'd stayed around."

"I don't think so," Ayame whispered unevenly, desperately wanting to be convinced to the contrary, "I was playing Cinderella that night."

"Cinderella left her slipper behind...she didn't crack open the prince's safe."

"But it wasn't real...those hours we spent together," she continued shakily, still praying that he would tell her different, and all because he had said those two words 'something special'. "You said all the right lines; I succumbed... yes, well, maybe I more than succumbed. I guess I was a bit more active than that, but you had no intention of ever seeing me again..." she shrugged a slight shoulder jerkily, no longer able to meet his shrewd gaze,

And plucked abstractedly at the sheet. "I mean...I mean, obviously you never had the smallest intention of showing up on the Ponte Della Guerra the next day."

"You remember that?" Kouga said, with the kind of surprise that suggested he was amazed that she should have recalled something so trivial.

Ayame remembered standing on that bridge for hours, and she could have wept at the memory. If there ever had been a chance that he would turn up, there had been none whatsoever after he had realized that he'd been robbed that same night.

So it was his entire fault. All her agonies could be laid at his door. And why was she thinking like this anyway? He couldn't possibly find her beautiful. Though he had behaved as if he did that night. True, she had looked really well, but surely his standards of female beauty had to be considerably higher?

"I have bright red hair," Ayame remarked stiltedly.

"I could hardly miss the fact, but it's not mere red, it's titian, and I'd prefer to see a lot more of it" Kouga proffered after some hesitation.

"But you must've noticed that I have a...a snub nose?"

"Retrousse is the word...it's unusual; it adds distinction to your face... why am I having this weird conversation with you?" Kouga demanded freezingly. He strode to the door, glanced grudgingly back over one broad shoulder. "I'll see you later."

Emptied of his enervating presence, the room seemed dim and dull.

But Ayame lay where she was. Kouga liked her nose; he liked her hair. What everybody else called skinny, he called "slender". Strange taste, but she knew she wouldn't have the heart to tell him that. So Kouga, who resembled her every fantasy of physical male perfection, could get the hots for a skinny redhead with a snub nose. That fact was a revelation to Ayame. No wonder he was annoyed with himself, but all of a sudden she wasn't annoyed with him at all.

He hadn't made love to her just out of a desire for revenge. No, he wasn't as self-denying as that. Kouga had really wanted to make love to her. There was nothing false about his desire for her. Everything he had said in bed must have been the truth...even the part about no other woman being able to satisfy him since?

Something special? Why did she feel so forgiving all of a sudden? Why was her brain encased in a fog of confusing emotion? That wretched, hateful ring that had been stolen, she reflected grimly. Take that problem out of their relationship and how might Kouga behave then? But even if she contrived that miracle, exactly how would he react to the news that the toddler from hell was his daughter?

It was early days yet, Ayame decided ruefully. A lot could happen in six months. Telling him that he had fathered a child the night of the ball might presently seem like an impressive counter-punch, but she didn't want to use Shiori like a weapon in a battle which nobody could win. In fact, she conceded then, unless their marriage became a real marriage, she was pretty sure she would never tell Kouga that Shiori was his child. What would be the point? Right now she had much more important things to consider: the Uno estate and how she planned to save it in the short-term. Borrowing money appeared to be out of the question.

And accepting Kouga's financial help would choke her. So was she going to have to steel herself to sell some of the Uno's glorious Tudor furniture at auction? If she did so, the pieces could never, ever be replaced. But what alternative way did she have of raising the cash to keep her home afloat over the next six months?

An hour later, garbed in a figure-hugging sapphire-blue dress and horrendously high stilettos, Ayame bent down with extreme caution to lift Shiori up into her arms, and bang— inspiration hit her the same second that her attention fell on the glossy gossip magazine the middle-aged nursemaid had left lying on a nearby chair. Didn't people pay good money for an insight into the lives of the rich and famous? Wasn't Kouga both rich and famous? And didn't she have a second cousin who was a secretary on one of those publications?

What would an interview and a few photos of Kouga Wolf's bride be worth? Ayame blinked, cringing from the concept but hardening herself against a sensitivity she could no longer afford. Kouga had said that infidelity or desertion would be grounds for ending their marital agreement. But he hadn't mentioned publicity...


	20. The vengeful husband 9

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Nine

Having heard the commotion, Ayame rose from her seat in the drawing room and walked to the door that opened onto the vast reception hall. She froze there, taken aback by the scene being enacted before her startled eyes.

On his return home, Kouga was being engulfed by his sister's dogs. It was like a rugby scrum. But astonishingly informative. Aristide and Zou Zou adored him, Ayame registered in surprise. And there he was, fondling shaggy ears and valiantly bearing up to the exuberant welcome he was receiving. Failing to notice her, Kouga then took the stairs two at a time, a gift-wrapped package clutched in one hand.

Since Ayame was a very slow mover in the unfamiliar high heels, she didn't catch up with him. And she was perplexed when he strode past their bedroom to turn up the flight of stairs that led to the nursery suite. She came to a halt in the doorway of the playroom. By the time she got there, Shiori had already ripped the paper off a box which she was now regarding with enraptured bliss.

"Dolly!" she gasped, squeezing the box so tight in her excitement that it crunched. "Pretty dolly!"

Peer pressure and television had a lot to answer for, Ayame decided uncomfortably. All the other little girls Shiori knew at the playgroup already had that doll, but Ayame had ignored all pleas to make a similar purchase. Why? Because that particular doll had always reminded her of Kagome. Now that seemed so inadequate an excuse when she saw Shiori reacting like a deprived child suddenly shot into seventh heaven.

"Shall I take her out of the box?" Kouga enquired helpfully.

While Shiori pondered whether or not she could bear to part with her gift even briefly, Ayame studied Kouga's hard, classic profile, which showed to even better advantage when he was smiling. She was frankly bewildered by what she was seeing.

Shiori extended the box. Hunkering down on a level with the toddler, Kouga removed the packaging and finally freed the soft-bodied version of the doll. "See, mummy!" her daughter caroled with pride.

As Kouga's well-shaped dark head whipped round to finally note Ayame's silent presence, Ayame reddened with awful self-consciousness beneath his lengthy appraisal. While unnecessarily engaged in smoothing down the skirt of her dress with damp palms, she strove to act unconcerned and evaded his scrutiny. "Did you say thank you, Shiori?"

"Kiss?" Shiori proffered instantly, moving forward to land a big splashy kiss on Kouga's cheek and then give him an enthusiastic hug.

"Isn't cupboard love great?" Kouga mocked his own calculation with an amused smile and vaulted upright again. "We got off on the wrong foot yesterday. A peace offering was a necessity."

"It was a kind thought" Ayame conceded stiltedly.

"I can be very kind, bella mia," Kouga countered huskily.

Ayame collided with his scorching dark stare. And quite without knowing how she knew it, she knew he was thinking about sex. That sixth sense awareness spooked her and plunged her into confusion.

As her skin heated her breath caught in her throat, and her heart gave a violent lurch. She couldn't look away from those stunning dark golden eyes. The impact of that look was staggering. She felt dizzy, unsteady on her feet and far, far too hot. The tip of her tongue skimmed along her dry lower lip in a nervous motion.

Kouga's intent scrutiny homed in on the soft fullness of her mouth. Something drew tight and twisted, low in her stomach, a sexual response so powerful it terrified her. Mercifully, Shiori broke the connection by holding out her new doll for her mother's admiration. "You haven't much time to say goodnight to her. My sister is joining us for dinner," Kouga advanced as he strode out through the door. "I need a shower and a change of clothes."

"Night-night, Kouga!" Shiori called cheerfully.

Kouga paused and glanced back with a raised ebony brow. "In the right mood, she's really quite sweet, isn't she?" his eyes became shadowed and his wide mouth compressed. "I had nothing to do with Yuri when she was that age...I was at boarding school. She was only seven when I went to university. I lived to regret not having a closer bond with her."

Twenty minutes later, having tucked Shiori into bed and read her a story, Ayame walked into their bedroom. Only his jacket and tie removed, Kouga was in the act of putting down his mobile phone.

"You look fantastic in that dress...you know why?" a wolfish grin slashed his lean, strong face. "It fits. It isn't two sizes too large or a foot too long!"

"Sumiko always helped me to choose my clothes," Ayame confided "she said that I had to dress to hide my deficiencies."

"You have none. You're in perfect proportion for your size."

But Ayame 's diminutive curves and lack of height had been deficiencies to a stepmother who was both tall and lushly female in shape. Sumiko had loathed red hair as well, insisting that Ayame could only wear dull colors. Growing up with Sumiko's constant criticism, and Akane's pitying superiority, Ayame had learned only to measure her looks against theirs. That unwise comparison had wrecked her confidence in her own appearance.

But now she gazed back at Kouga and could not fail to recognize his sincerity. He'd told her she looked fantastic. And sensual appreciation radiated from the lingering appraisal in those intent dark eyes. If she didn't yet quite credit that she could look fantastic, she certainly realized with a surge of gratified wonder that Kouga genuinely believed she did.

Her softened gaze ran with abstracted admiration over his long, lean, powerful physique. She was shaken to note the earthy and defiantly male thrust of arousal that the close fit of his well-cut trousers couldn't conceal. She reddened hotly, but she also felt empowered and outrageously feminine.

"Kouga..." she whispered shakily.

Later, she couldn't recall who had reached out first. She remembered the way his gaze narrowed, the blaze of golden intent between black spiky lashes, and then suddenly she was crushed in his arms and clinging to him to stay upright.

He parted her lips to invade her tender mouth with his thrusting tongue, dipping, twirling, and tasting her with fierce, impatient need. He cut right through her every defense with that blunt, honest admission of desire. She trembled violently beneath that devouring kiss. He made her feel possessed, dominated, and utterly weak with hunger.

"I should never have left you...I've been in a filthy temper all day" Kouga confided raggedly, slumberous eyes scanning her lovely face with very male satisfaction, a febrile flush on his taut cheekbones "I want you so much..."

"Yes..." Ayame acknowledged a truth too obvious to be denied. She felt the same. Her heart was pounding, her whole body throbbing with intense arousal. It was like being in pain; it made her crave him like a drug.

"I can't wait until later...I'm in agony" Kouga gritted roughly.

Hard fingers splayed across her spine to press her into direct contact with his hard thighs. He shuddered against her with a stifled groan, kissing her temples, the top of her head, running his fingers through her hair and then bringing her mouth back hungrily under his again. She couldn't get close enough to him. He slid one hand beneath her skirt, skimming up a slender thigh to the very heart of her. The damp swollen heat of her beneath the thin barrier of her panties betrayed her response. Excitement made her squirm and moan against that skilled touch.

"Kouga...please" she gasped urgently. He backed her down on the side of the bed. He leant over her, hands braced on either side of her head, and plunged deep into her mouth again, eliciting a low cry of surrender from her. Tugging down the zip on her dress, he removed it, skimming off her remaining garments with deft, impatient hands. He stilled for a second, reverent eyes scanning the pouting curves of her breasts and the silky dark red hair at the apex of her slender thighs.

"You are gorgeous, bella mia...how can you ever have doubted that?" Kouga demanded as he stood over her, peeling off his own clothing at speed.

He came down to her, gloriously aroused. Cupping her breasts, he caressed the sensitive buds with his lips and his tongue, and then he kissed a slow tantalizing trail down over the flexing muscles of her stomach, pushing her quivering thighs apart to conduct a more intimate exploration. She was shocked, but too tormented by her own aching need for his caresses to stop him. He controlled her utterly; pushed her to such a pitch of writhing, desperate excitement she was helpless.

He rose over her again, his breathing fractured. He dipped his tongue between her reddened lips in a sexy flick as he tipped back her thighs with almost clumsy hands, his own excitement palpable. Burnished golden eyes assailed hers. He hesitated at the crucial moment when she was braced for the hot, hard invasion of his body into hers.

"Kouga!"

"Dio mio... I don't know myself like this" he groaned ruefully. "I feel wild...but I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't..."

"You're so much smaller than I am."

"I like it when you're wild" she whispered feverishly.

Above her, Kouga closed his eyes and slammed into her hard, releasing such a flood of electrifying sensation that Ayame moaned his name like a benediction. He withdrew and entered her again, with a raw, forceful sense of timing that was soul-shatteringly effective. Her entire being was centered on the explosive pleasure building inside her. Heart pounding in concert with his, she cried out in ecstasy as he drove her over the edge. Then she just collapsed, totally drained.

They lay together in a sweaty huddle. Kouga released her from his weight but retained a possessive hold on her, pressing his mouth softly to her throat, lingering to lick the salt from her skin and smooth a soothing hand down over her slender back.

"That was unbelievable...that was paradise, cara mia," Kouga sighed in a tone of wondering satisfaction. "I have never felt this good."

"What time is your sister coming?" Ayame mumbled. Kouga tensed, relocated the wrist with a watch, and suddenly wrenched himself free. "Porca miseria...Yuri will be here at any moment!"

Feeling totally brainless and lethargic, Ayame watched him spring off the bed. "Ayame..." he gritted then.

"What?" she whispered with a silly smile, surveying him with a kind of bursting feeling inside her heart.

"You can share my shower." Kouga scooped her up into his powerful arms and strode into the bathroom with her.

"I'll never get my hair dry!" but still she watched him, trying desperately hard to work out why she felt so ecstatically happy.

"Your eyes are glowing like neon lights." studying her with a curiously softened look in his dark, deep-set gaze, Kouga hooked her arms round his strong brown throat and kissed her again, holding her plastered to every inch of him beneath the gushing cascade of water.

He raised his head again, a slight frown drawing his black brows together. "I assume you're on the pill..."

"Nope."

"I didn't use anything to protect you," Kouga told her slowly as he lowered her back down to the floor of the cubicle "santo cielo... how could I be that careless?"

Ayame had stiffened. How could she be that careless again? Yet another time. The first occasion had resulted in Shiori's conception. She had foolishly assumed that the course of contraceptive pills she had stopped taking the day she failed to marry Houjo would still prevent a pregnancy. Naturally it hadn't. Her own ignorance had been her downfall. "Very little risk" she muttered awkwardly, avoiding his searching scrutiny.

"You would know that better than I."

He was wrong there, Ayame conceded ruefully. Her monthly cycles caused her so little inconvenience that she never bothered to keep a note of dates. She hadn't a clue what part of her cycle she was in, but she had almost supernatural faith in the power of Kouga's fertility. Suppose she did become pregnant again...

Oddly enough, the prospect failed to rouse the slightest sense of alarm. Indeed, as Ayame looked up at Kouga, mentally miles away while he washed her, she was picturing a small boyish version of those same features that distinguished Shiori. A buoyant warm sensation instantly blossomed inside her. Only when she appreciated how she was reacting to that prospect of pregnancy was she shocked by herself.

"What's wrong?" Kouga prompted.

In her haste to escape those frighteningly astute eyes, Ayame lurched out of the shower. grabbing up a towel, she took refuge in the dressing room to dry herself. I can't be in love with him. I can't be, she told herself sickly. It was a kind of immature infatuation and it had its sad roots in the past.

Dia had been right about her: she had spent too much time alone. Building romantic castles in the air around Kouga Wolf would be a very stupid move, and, having done it once and learnt her mistake, she was convinced she was too sensible to be so foolish again.

By one of those strange tricks of fate Kouga found her attractive, and they were sexually compatible, but she would have to be an idiot to imagine that Kouga might now develop some form of emotional attachment to her. He had said it himself only this morning, hadn't he? He had talked with outrageous unapologetic cool about how they should be 'skimming along the surface of things and having a great time in bed' rather than arguing.

Suddenly Ayame was very glad she had slapped him so hard...

"Tell me about your sister" Ayame invited Kouga as they left the bedroom. Having donned an elegant black dress and fresh lingerie at speed, she had attempted to coax her damp curls into some semblance of a style, but she was out of breath and her cheeks were still pink with effort. "It'll look strange if I know nothing about her."

Kouga, as sleek and cool and elegant as a male who had spent a leisurely hour showering, shaving and donning his superb dinner jacket and narrow black trousers, gave her a wry look. "My parents died in a plane crash when Yuri was eight. My aunt became her legal guardian. I was only nineteen. Susumo was a childless widow, eager to mother my sister, but she was very possessive. She made it difficult for me to maintain regular contact with Yuri."

"That was selfish of her."

"She also refused to allow me to share in Yuri's upbringing when I was in a position to offer her a more settled home life. And she was a very liberal guardian. She spoilt Yuri rotten. When my sister turned into a difficult teenager, Susumo saw her behavior as rank ingratitude. Being a substitute mother had become a burden. She demanded that I take responsibility for Yuri and within the same month she moved to New York."

"Oh, dear..." Ayame grimaced.

"Yuri was devastated by that rejection and she furiously resented me. We had some troubled times," Kouga conceded with a rueful shrug. "She's twenty now, but I have little contact with her. As soon as she reached eighteen, she demanded an apartment of her own."

"I'm sorry." Seeing his dissatisfaction with this detached state of affairs, Ayame rested her hand on his sleeve in a sympathetic gesture. "I always think the worst wounds are inflicted within the family circle. We're all much more vulnerable where our own flesh and blood is concerned."

"You're thinking of your father?"

"It's hard not to. I spent my whole life wanting to be somebody in his eyes, struggling to win his respect," Ayame admitted gruffly.

"Everyone's like that with parents."

Tensing as she noticed his attention dropping to the hand still curved to his arm, she hurriedly removed it, thinking then with pain that the kind of physical closeness which he was at ease with in bed seemed a complete no-no out of bed.

"But I was reaching for something I could never have. I don't think my father ever looked at me without resenting the fact that I wasn't the son he wanted...but all that made me do was try harder" she confided ruefully.

Kouga reached for her hand and curled lean fingers tautly round hers. "Was that why you took the adorata?" he demanded in a roughened undertone, shrewd dark eyes drawn to her startled face. " Ayame impressively riding to the rescue of the family fortunes with a pretend lucky find?"

Caught unprepared, Ayame lost every scrap of color in her cheeks, her green eyes darkening with hurt at that absurd suspicion. Once again she had forgotten what lay between them, and with too great a candor she had exposed herself to attack.

"You must've lied to your father. He may have been domineering and aggressive, but he had the reputation of being an honest, upright man. Did you tell him that you had found it in some dusty antique shop where you had bought it for a song?" Kouga pressed with remorseless persistence.

A door opened off the ball. Both Ayame and Kouga whipped round. A slim, stunning girl with shoulder-length dark hair and a sullen expression subjected them to a stony appraisal. "I have no intention of wasting an entire evening waiting for you to show up at your own dinner table, Kouga" Yuri said with brittle sarcasm. "Just why did you bother to invite me?"

"I hoped that you might want to meet Ayame. I'm sorry that we've kept you waiting" Kouga murmured levelly.

Yuri vented a thin laugh. "Why didn't you give me the opportunity to meet her before you got married?"

"I left several messages on your answering machine. You never call back" Kouga countered calmly.

The combination of aggression and hurt emanating from Yuri was powerful. But then her big brother had married a total stranger. In those circumstances, her hostility was natural, Ayame conceded. Tugging free of Kouga, she walked over to his sister, a rueful look of appeal in her eyes. "You have every right to be furious. And I don't know how to explain why—"

"We got married in a hurry" Kouga slotted in with finality as he thrust open the door of the dining room. Atmospheric pools of candlelight illuminated the beautifully set table awaiting them. "There's not much else to say."

"I can't imagine you doing anything in a hurry without good reason, Kouga" Yuri gibed "have you got her pregnant?"

Ayame froze, and then forced herself down into the seat Kouga had spun out for her occupation. While Kouga shot a low-pitched sentence of icy Italian at his sister, Ayame drowned in guilty pink color and glanced at neither combatant. The suggestion had been chosen to insult, but it was more apt than either of her companions could know.

However, she recognized the position Kouga had put himself in, and she wanted to help minimize the damage to his already strained relationship with his sister.

"We had a quiet wedding because my father died recently" Ayame spoke up abruptly. "I have to admit that we were rather impulsive—"

"Impulsive? Kouga?" Yuri derided, unimpressed. "Who do you think you're kidding? He never makes a single move that he hasn't planned down to the last detail!"

"In this case, he did" Ayame persisted quietly. "but it was selfish of us to just rush off and get married without letting our families share in the event."

"Your family wasn't there either?" the younger woman looked astonished, but was visibly soothed by the admission. "So where did you meet...and when?"

"That's a long story—" Kouga began.

Ayame rushed to interrupt him. Telling the truth, or as much of it as was reasonable, would be wisest in the circumstances, rather than that silly story of her having reversed into his car in london and shouted at him. This was his sister they were dealing with, and Yuri had to know that Kouga would have wiped the pavement with any female that stupid.

"I met your brother almost three years ago at a masked ball here" Ayame admitted, an anxious smile on her lips.

The effect of that simple statement stunned Ayame. To her left, Kouga released his breath in a stark hiss and shot her a look of outright exasperation. To her right, Yuri's face locked tight. She gaped at Ayame in the most peculiar way, her mouth a shocked and rounded circle from which no sound emitted, her olive skin draining to a sick pallor which made her horrified dark eyes look huge.

"I seem to have—"

"Put a giant foot in your mouth" Kouga completed grimly.

And then everything went crazy. Just as Ayame realized with a sinking heart that naturally his sister had to be aware of the theft that had taken place that night, and that she had just foolishly exposed Kouga and herself to the need for an explanation that would be well nigh impossible to make, Yuri flew upright. The focus of her stricken attention was surprisingly not Ayame, but her brother.

As Yuri began ranting hysterically at Kouga in Italian she backed away from the table. A look of astonished incomprehension on his taut features, Kouga rose upright and strode towards his sister. "cosa c'e che non va...what's wrong?" he demanded urgently, anxiously. Crying now in earnest, Yuri clumsily evaded her brother's attempt to place comforting hands on her shoulders. Tearing herself away, she gasped out something in her own language and fled.

Instead of following her, Kouga froze there as if his sister had struck him. He raised his lean hands, spread them slightly in an odd, inarticulate movement, and then slowly dropped them again.

Ayame hurried over to his side. "What's the matter with her?"

His clenched profile starkly delineated against the flickering pools of shadow and light, Kouga drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He turned a strange, unfocused look on Ayame. "She said...she said..." he began unevenly.

"She said. ..What?" Ayame prompted impatiently, listening to Yuri having a rousing bout of hysterics in the hall.

"Yuri said she stole the adorata ring" Kouga finally got out, and he shook his glossy dark head in so much shock and lingering disbelief he had the aspect of a very large statue teetering dangerously on its base.

"Oh...oh, dear" Ayame muttered, so shaken by that shattering revelation that she couldn't for the life of her manage to come up with anything more appropriate. Yuri was sobbing herself hoarse in the centre of the hall. Ayame tried to put her arms round the girl and got pushed away. Yuri shot an accusing, gulping stream of Italian at her.

"I'm sorry, but I was absolutely lousy at languages at school." Ayame curved a determined hand round the girl's elbow and urged her into the drawing room. "I know you're very upset...but try hard to calm down just a bit" she pleaded.

"How can I? Kouga will never forgive me!" Yuri wailed, and she flung herself face-down on a sofa to sob again.

Sitting down beside her, Ayame let her cry for a while. But as soon as Kouga entered the room she got up and said awkwardly "look... I'11 leave you two alone—"

"No!" Yuri suddenly reached out to grab at Ayame's hand. "You stay..."

"Yes...because if you don't, Ayame," Kouga muttered in the strangest tone of eerie detachment from his sister's distress, "I may just kill her."

"You're nearly as bad as she is!" Ayame condemned roundly as Yuri went off into another bout of tormented sobbing. "You won't get any sense out of her talking like that."

"I know very well how to get sense out of her!"

Kouga rapped out a command in staccato Italian which sounded very much like a version of pull-yourself-together-or-else.

"I'm sorry...I'm really s-sorry!" Yuri gulped brokenly then. "I panicked when I realized that Ayame was the woman you met that night... because you had married her I thought you had guessed...and that you had brought me over here to confront me with what I did!"

"Your brother wouldn't behave like that" Ayame said quietly.

Kouga shot her a curious, almost pained look, and then turned his attention back to his sister. "How did you do it?"

"You shouldn't have been at the apartment at all that evening because it was the night of the ball." sitting bolt-upright now on the sofa, clutching the tissue that Ayame had fetched for her use, Yuri began to shred it with restive, trembling hands. "I needed money and you'd cut off my allowance...refused to let me even see Pietro...! Was so angry with you! I was going to run away with him, but we needed money to do that—"

"You were seventeen" Kouga cut in harshly. "I did what I had to do to protect you from yourself. If you hadn't been an heiress that sleazy louse wouldn't have given you a second glance!"

"Let her tell her story" Ayame murmured, watching Yuri cringe at that blunt assessment.

"I h-had a key to the apartment. I knew all the security codes. One day when I had lunch there with you, you went into the safe and I watched you do it from the hall" Yuri mumbled shamefacedly. "I thought there would be cash in the safe..."

"Your timing was unfortunate."

"All there was... was the adorata" Yuri continued shakily. "I was furious, so I took it. I told myself I was entitled to it if I needed it, but when I took the adorata to Pietro, he...he laughed in my face! He said he wasn't fool enough to try and sell a famous piece of stolen goods. He said he would have had Interpol chasing him across Europe in pursuit of it...so I planned to put the ring back the next morning."

"That was a timely change of heart" Ayame put in encouragingly, although one look at Kouga 's icily clenched and remote profile reduced her to silence again.

"But you see, you went back to the apartment that night and stayed there...you found the safe open and the adorata gone...I was too late!" Yuri wailed.

"What did you do with the ring?"

"It's safe," his sister hastened to assure him "it's in my safety deposit box with mamma's jewellery."

Momentarily, Kouga closed his eyes at that news. "Porca miseria..." he ground out unsteadily. "All this time..."

"If you'd called in the police I would have had to tell you I had it" his sister muttered, almost accusingly. "But when I realized you believed that the woman you'd left the ball with had taken it..." she shot a severely embarrassed glance at Ayame, belatedly recalling that that woman and her brother's wife were now one and the same.

"I mean—"

"Hey...it's all right," Ayame cut in, but her cheeks were burning.

"You see..." Yuri hesitated. "You weren't like a real person to me, and it didn't seem to matter who Kouga blamed as long as he didn't suspect me."

Ayame studied the exquisite Aubusson carpet fixedly, mortification overpowering her. She could well imagine how low an opinion Yuri must have had of her at seventeen: some tramp who had dived into bed with her brother the same night she had first met him. Disconcertingly, Kouga vented a flat, humorless laugh. "Aren't you fortunate that Ayame disappeared into thin air?"

Ayame was more than willing to disappear into thin air all over again. She turned towards the door. "I think you need to talk without a stranger around" she said with a rather tremulous smile.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Distinctly shaky after the strain of the scene she had undergone, Ayame shook her head apologetically at Kouga's manservant, who was now hovering uncomfortably in the dining room doorway, obviously wondering what was happening and whether or not any of them intended to sit down and eat dinner like civilized people. She had enjoyed a substantial lunch earlier in the day and now she felt pretty queasy.

Poor Kouga. Poor Yuri. Such a shaming secret must have been horrible for the girl to live with for so long. A moment's reckless bitter rebellion over the head of some boy she had clearly been hopelessly infatuated with. As Yuri matured that secret would have weighed ever more heavily on her conscience, probably causing her to assume a defensive attitude to cover her unease in Kouga's presence.

Guilt did that—it ate away at you. Little wonder that Yuri had avoided Kouga 's company.

She had been too afraid to face up to what she had done and confess. And the instant Yuri had appreciated that her brother's wife was also the woman Kouga had once believed to be a thief, she had jumped to the panic-stricken conclusion that Kouga somehow knew that she was the culprit. After all, how could Yuri ever have guessed that her lordly big brother might have married a woman he still believed to be a thief out of a powerful need to punish her? And now Kouga would finally get that wretched ring back. Could he really believe that any inanimate object, no matter how valuable, precious and rare, was worth so much grief? How did he feel now that he knew he had misjudged her? Gutted, Ayame decided without hesitation. He had looked absolutely gutted when comprehension rolled over him like a drowning tidal wave. His own sister.

Ayame heaved a sigh. Maybe, as Kouga had said himself, peace would now break out. Naturally he would have to apologize...in fact a bit of crawling wouldn't come amiss, Ayame thought, beginning to feel rather surprisingly upbeat. Having checked on Shiori, she wandered downstairs again and into the dining room.

She sat down at the table, appetite restored, and tucked into her elaborate starter. No, she didn't want Kouga to crawl. He was having a tough enough time with Yuri and his spectacular own goal of misjudgment. She had to be fair. The evidence had been very much stacked against her. And how could he ever have suspected his seventeen-year-old sister of pulling off such a feat? She was halfway through the main course when Kouga appeared.

"Santo cielo...how can you eat at a time like this?" he breathed in a charged tone of incredulity.

"I felt hungry...sorry to be so prosaic" Ayame muttered, wondering where that rather melodramatic opening was about to take him. "How's Yuri?"

"I persuaded her to stay the night. I'm sorry about that..."

"About what?" conscious that the sight of the cutlery still in her grasp seemed to be an offence of no mean order in his eyes, she abandoned her meal. In fact, in the mix of shadow and dim light in which Kouga stood poised, the dark, somber planes of his unusually pale features lent him an almost lost, lonely sort of aspect.

"About what?" Kouga echoed, frowning as if he was struggling to get a grip on himself. "Aren't you furious with Yuri?"

"Gosh, no...She was terribly distressed. She's rather young for her age—very...well, emotional" Ayame selected, striving to be tactful for once in her life.

"Being emotional is not catching...is it? You must be outraged with me" Kouga breathed starkly.

"Well, yes, I was when all this nonsense started—"

"Nonsense?" Kouga cut in with ragged stress.

Ayame rose to her feet, wishing she could just run over and put her arms round him, spring him out of this strange and unfamiliar mood he was in, but he looked so incredibly remote now. As if he had lost everything he possessed. But he would strangle the first person who had the bad taste to either mention it or show a single hint of pity or understanding.

"I always knew I didn't take the wretched thing" she pointed out gently. "I'm awfully glad it's all cleared up now. And I understand why you were so convinced I was the thief...after all; you didn't know me, did you?"

Kouga flinched as if she had punched him in the stomach. He spun his dark head away.

"No...I didn't" he framed almost hoarsely.

She watched him swallow convulsively.

Feeling utterly helpless, craving the confidence to bridge the frightening gap she could feel opening up between them, Ayame was gripped by a powerful wave of frustration. He was so at a loss; she wanted to hug him the way she hugged Shiori when she fell over and hurt herself. But she thought she would crack their tenuous relationship right down the middle if she made such an approach. He was too proud.

"We'll talk later" Kouga imparted with what sounded like collected self. "You need to be alone for a while" he needed to be alone for a while, Ayame interpreted without difficulty. He's going to walk out on me... what did I do wrong? A voice screamed inside her bemused head. Here she was, being as fair, honest and reasonable as she knew how to be, and the wretched man was withdrawing more from her with every second.

"Tell me...would you have preferred a screaming row?'

"We have nothing to row about any more" Kouga countered, without a shade of his usual irony. In fact he sounded as if his only enjoyment in life had been wrenched from him by the cruelest of fates.

As the clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight, Ayame rose with a sigh. And that was when she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. As the drawing room door opened, she tensed. For a split second Kouga stilled at the sight of her, veiled eyes astutely reading the anxious, assessing look in hers.

"Would you like a drink?" he murmured quietly as he thrust the door closed.

"A brandy..." she watched him stride over to the ornate oriental drinks cabinet. Lithe, dark, strikingly good-looking, every movement fluid as poetry. He didn't look gutted any more —but then she hadn't expected him to. Kouga was tough, a survivor, and survivors knew how to roll with the punches.

But she must have been born under an unlucky star. What savage fate had decreed that she should be involved up to her throat in the two biggest mistakes Kouga had ever made? It was so cruel. He would judge himself harshly and he would never think of her without guilty unease again. She was like an albatross in his life, always a portent of doom. She hoed in to his radius and things went badly wrong. If he was like every other man she had ever known, he would very soon find the very sight of her an objectionable reminder of his own lowest moments.

Kouga handed her the balloon glass of brandy, his lean, strong face somber. "I have come to some conclusions."

Menaced by both expression and announcement, Ayame downed the brandy in one long, desperate gulp.

"You must have found the last few days very traumatic" Kouga breathed heavily, fabulous bone structure rigid. "In retrospect, it is impossible to justify anything that I have done. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only admit that from the instant I found you gone from the apartment, the safe open, the adorata gone, I nourished an obsessive need to run you to ground and even what I saw as the score between us—"

Predictably, Ayame cut to the heart of the matter. "You thought I'd made a fool of you."

"Yes...and that was a new experience for me. I must confess that there was nothing I was not prepared to do to achieve my objective" Kouga admitted with a grim edge to his dark, deep voice. "If Yuri hadn't confessed tonight, I'd still have believed you guilty, and since it would not have been possible for you to satisfy my demand that you help me to regain the adorata...I would, ultimately, have dispossessed you of Uno's folly."

Ayame was ashen pale now. "No...You wouldn't have done that."

Slowly, Kouga shook his dark head, stunning dark eyes resting full on her disbelieving face. "Ayame, you're a much nicer person than I have ever been...I would have done it. When I married you, I already held the future of the folly in the palm of my hand."

"What do you m-mean?" she stammered, moisture beading her short upper lip as she stared back at him.

From the inside pocket of his beautifully tailored dinner jacket, Kouga withdrew a folded document. "I bought the company which gave your father the mortgage on the folly. This is the agreement. You're in default of the terms of the agreement now. I could have called in the loan and forced you out at any time over the next six months" he spelt out very quietly "it would've been as easy as taking candy from a baby."

Her shattered eyes huge dark smudges against her pallor, Ayame gazed back at him transfixed. "You...you bought the company?" she gasped sickly.

As he absorbed the full extent of her horror at such calculated fore planning, Kouga seemed to pale too. "I had to tell you. I had to be completely honest with you. You have the right to know it all now."

Her lips bloodless, Ayame mumbled strikingly, "I don't think I wanted to know that...how anybody could sink that low?"

"I wish I could say that I don't know what got into me...but I do know" Kouga murmured with bleak, dark eyes. "My ego could not live with what I believed you had done to me that night. I had the power to take a terrible revenge and that was my intention when I replied to your advertisement."

Ayame nodded like a little wooden marionette, too appalled to do anything but gaze back at him as if he had turned into a monster before her very eyes.

A faint sheen now glossed Kouga's golden skin. "Not a very pretty objective...when I think back to that now, I am very much ashamed. You have made such a valiant struggle to survive against all the odds."

Ayame shook her pounding head with a little jerk. She felt as if she was dying inside, and now she knew what was really the matter with her—could no longer avoid knowing. She had fallen in love with him. How else could he be hurting her so much? She turned almost clumsily away from him, a mess of raw, agonized nerve-endings, and sank down onto a sofa. "I slept with you" she muttered, suddenly stricken.

"I definitely don't think we should touch on that issue right now" Kouga contended without hesitation. "I'm sinking faster than a rock in a swamp as it is. What I want to do now...what I need to do...is make amends to you in every way possible"

"I hate you..." and she did. She hated him because he didn't love her, because he had made a fool of her, because she had made a fool of herself and, last but not least, because she could not bear the thought of having to struggle to get over him again.

"I can live with that."

"I want to go home."

"Of course. The jet is at your disposal. When were you thinking of leaving?"

"Now—"

"It wouldn't be a good idea to get Shiori out of bed" since Ayame was still staring numbly at the rug beneath her feet, Kouga hunkered down in front of her. "Shout at me...hit me if it makes you feel better. I don't know what to do when you're quiet!" he murmured fiercely.

"I'll leave first thing in the morning" Ayame swore.

Kouga reached for her tightly coiled hands. "When do you want me to fly over?"

Ayame focused on him for the first time in several minutes but said nothing, her incredulity unfeigned.

Brilliant dark eyes glittered. "You're stuck with me for the next six months" Kouga reminded her gently. "Surely you hadn't forgotten that...had you?"

Ayame had. Her brain felt as if it was spinning in tortured circles.

Kouga contrived to ease up each small coiled finger during the interim, and gain a hold on both of her hands. "I promise to fulfill our agreement. No matter what happens, I will not let you down."

Ayame snatched her hands back in a raw motion of repudiation. "I couldn't stand it!"

"I have tried to express my remorse—"

"I don't think you have it in you to feel remorse!" Ayame condemned abruptly, her oval face flushing with a return of healthier color as she got her teeth into that conviction. "You're sneaky, devious...and I can't abide sneakiness or dishonesty. The only two things in life that excite you are sex and money."

A dark rise of blood had delineated the savagely taut slant of his cheekbones. "Once there was a third thing that excited me, far more than either of those."

"What?" she gibed with a jagged laugh as she sprang upright, no longer able to stand being so close to him, terrified her fevered emotions would betray her. "The prospect of taking revenge? Gosh, I should be flattered! Was that stupid bloody ring really worth this much effort?"

Kouga vaulted back to his full commanding height, but with something less than his habitual grace. "No..." it was very quiet.

"And do you want the biggest laugh of all?" Ayame slung shakily at him, green eyes huge with pain, and her slender body trembling with the force of her feelings. "I fell like a ton of bricks for you that night, only I didn't realize until it was too late. I even tried to find my way back to your apartment but I couldn't! What a lucky miss! You'd have had me arrested for theft before I'd cleared the front door!"

Kouga looked poleaxed, as well he might have done. Ayame hadn't meant to spill out such a private painful truth, but she flung her head back with defiant pride, meeting the sheer shock in his spectacular dark eyes without flinching.

"You went to the Ponte Della Guerra" he breathed with ragged abruptness, catching her by surprise. "No...Please tell me you didn't!"

"While you were ferreting like a great stupid prat round your empty safe!" taking a bold stance, Ayame stalked to the door. "Don't you dare show your face at the folly for a few weeks!"

"As we are supposed to be a newly married couple that might arouse suspicion" Kouga pointed out flatly.

"Kouga...you're not seeing the whole picture here!" Ayame informed him with vigor. "A honeymoon that lasts less than three days has obviously been a wash-out! An absentee workaholic husband completes the right image for a marriage destined to fail. And when you do come to visit, and everyone sees how absolutely useless you are at being my strong right arm, nobody's going to be one bit surprised when I dump you six months down the line!"


	21. The vengeful husband 10

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Ten

Ayame closed the glossy magazine with a barely restrained shudder, undyingly grateful that Kouga would never read the interview she had given. At her request, the magazine had faxed the questions to her. After carefully studying some old magazines to see how other women had talked in similar interviews, Ayame had responded to those questions with a cringe-making amount of slush and gush.

Anyway, Kouga was in Italy, and men didn't read those sorts of publications, did they? The sizeable cheque she had earned for that tissue of lies about her blissfully happy marriage and her even more wonderful new husband was more than sufficient compensation for a little embarrassment. With the proceeds she would be able to bring the mortgage repayments up to date, settle some other outstanding bills and put the land rover in for a service.

It had been two weeks and three days since she had seen Kouga. Every day, every hour had crawled. She felt haunted by Kouga. Having him around to shout at or even ignore would have been infinitely more bearable. She ached for him. And she was angry and ashamed that she could feel such an overpowering need and hunger for a male who had entered her life only to harm her.

Impervious to all hints and beautifully well-mannered to the last, Kouga had seen them off at the airport. Shiori had actually burst into tears when she realized that he wasn't coming with them. Lifting the little girl for a farewell hug, Kouga had looked strangely self-satisfied.

But seeing those two dark heads so close together had had a very different effect on Ayame. the physical resemblance between father and daughter was startling. The Wolf straight nose and level brows, the black hair and dark eyes... Ayame was now confronting unwelcome realities. Shiori had the right to know her father. And Kouga had rights too—not that she thought he would have the slightest urge to exercise them.

But if she didn't tell Kouga that he had a daughter, some day Shiori would demand that her mother justify that decision. And the unhappy truth was that her own wounded pride, her craven desire to avoid a traumatic confession and her pessimistic suppositions about how Kouga might react, were not in them sufficient excuse for her to remain silent. Houjo had phoned in the week to say that he would come down for a night over the weekend with his current girlfriend. Ayame had been looking forward to some fresh company, but unfortunately Houjo arrived on Friday afternoon, just as she was on her way out with Shiori. He was alone.

Tall, loose-limbed, and with a shock of dark hair and brown eyes, Houjo immediately made himself at home on the sagging sofa by the kitchen range. "If you're going out, I intend to drown my sorrows," he warned, his mobile features radiating self-pity in waves. "I've been dumped." Ayame almost said, not again, which would have been very tactless. Managing to bite the words back, she gave his slumped shoulder a consoling pat. He was like the brother she had never had, and utterly clueless about women.

He had a fatal weakness for long-legged glamorous blondes, and the looks and the money to attract them if not to hold them. He didn't like clubbing or parties. He lived for his horses. "Shiori 's been invited to a party and I offered to stay and help," Ayame told him. "I'll be a while, so you're on your own unless you care to ring Dia."

"Pity she's not a blonde" Houjo lamented, stuck like a record in a groove. He pulled a whisky bottle out of a capacious pocket. "None of the women I like are blonde..."

"Doesn't that tell you something?"

"I wish I'd done the decent thing and married you. I probably would've been quite happy"

"Houjo..." Ayame drew in a deep, restraining breath, reminded that she had yet to tell Houjo that she was currently in possession of a husband. "Why don't you put the booze away and go down to the lodge and keep Dia company?"

"I'm not telling her I've been dumped again...she'd laugh!"

Ayame called Dia before she went out. "Houjo 's here" she announced "he's been dumped" Dia howled with laughter.

"I thought I'd let you get that out of your system before you see him in the flesh."

It was almost seven by the time Ayame arrived home. After all the excitement at the party, Shiori was exhausted and ready only for bed. Houjo was in a maudlin slump in the kitchen. Ayame surveyed the sunken level on the whisky bottle in dismay. "You're feeling that bad?"

"worsh" Houjo groaned, opening only one bloodshot eye.

Pity and irritation mingled inside Ayame. She, too, was miserable. Some decent conversation might have cheered her up, but Houjo was drunk as a skunk. And, since he had never behaved like that before, she couldn't even reasonably shout at him.

She took Shiori upstairs, gave her a quick bath, tucked her into her bed started to read her a story, but Shiori fell asleep in the middle of it. Her eyes filled with guilt and love, Ayame smoothed her daughter's dark curls tenderly from her brow and sighed. She owed it to Shiori to tell Kouga the truth.

With a steely glint in her gaze, Ayame went back downstairs to sort out Houjo. Since he'd chosen to get legless in her absence, he could jolly well go and sleep it off. "Time for bed, Houjo" she announced loudly "get up!"

He lumbered upright in slow and very shaky motion. "ish still light..." he muttered in bewilderment.

"So?" Ayame pushed him towards the stairs. "You're lucky Dia 's not here...you know how she feels about alcohol after her experiences with her ex."

Houjo looked terrified. "Not coming, ish she?"

Reflecting on the awkwardness of having two close friends who occasionally mixed like oil and water, she guided him into the room beside her own, which she had once promised Kouga. Houjo lurched down onto the mattress like a falling tree.

"Met your hushband...when did you get a hushband?" Houjo contrived to slur, with only academic interest.

In the act of throwing a blanket over his prone body Ayame stilled, not crediting what she was hearing. "My husband?" she queried sharply.

Grabbing her hand, Houjo tugged her closer and whispered confidentially, "not a friendly chap...Tried to hit me...would've punched my lights out if I hadn't fallen over..." he was rambling, out of his skull, hallucinating. He had to be.

"Now isn't this cozy?" a dark sardonic drawl breathed at that exact same moment from the doorway.

Ayame got such a shock she almost leapt a foot in the air. An incredulous look on her face, she wrenched herself free of Houjo and whipped round. "Where did you come from?" she gasped, totally appalled and showing it. "I've been home over an hour!"

"Since you were out, I went for a drive" Kouga divulged grimly.

And she looked awful, she reflected in anguish. Before bathing Shiori she had sensibly changed into a faded summer dress. Had she known Kouga was coming, she would have dressed up—not because she wished to attract him, but because she didn't want him thinking, gosh, what a mess she is. What did I ever see in her? She had her pride and now it was in the dust.

Kouga, clad in yet another of his breathtakingly elegant suits, looked absolutely stupendous. Navy suit, white shirt with fine red stripes, red silk tie. Smart enough to stroll out in front of television cameras. Slowly, very slowly, she allowed her intimidated gaze to rise above his shirt collar. Jaw line aggressive. Beautiful mouth grim. Spectacular cheekbones harshly prominent and flushed. Sensational eyes blazing like gold daggers locking into a target. Her mouth ran dry, her heart skipping a beat.

The very image of masculine outrage, Kouga continued to stare at her, the sheer force of his will beating down on her. "Houjo is not staying the night here!"

Houjo opened his eyes. "thash him" he said helpfully. "speaksh italian like a native..."

"Oh, do shut up and go to sleep, Houjo," Ayame muttered unevenly.

"He stays... I go" Kouga delivered in a charged undertone.

"Don't be daft...he's not doing you any harm!"

Kouga spun on his heel. Ayame unfroze and flew through the door after him. "Kouga...where are you going?"

He shot her a scorching look of incredulous fury. "I'm leaving. Per amor di dio... I will not stay beneath the same roof as your lover!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Ayame demanded, wide-eyed. "Houjo is not my lover." His shimmering eyes murderous, Kouga spread both hands in a slashing motion and shot something at her in wrathful Italian.

Ayame gulped, registering that she was dealing with a seething angry male, presently incapable of accepting reasoned argument or explanation and indeed at the very limit of his control.

"Ok...ok, I'll get rid of him" she promised in desperation, because she knew at that moment that if she didn't, it was the end of everything. Kouga would depart never to return. She lifted the phone by the bed and dialed the lodge. "Dia...I need a very big favor from you...in fact, it's so big I don't quite know how to ask. Houjo is drunk, Kouga's here and he's got this ridiculous idea that Houjo and I are lovers. He's really furious and he wants him out of the house, and I—"

"Houjo, drunk...?" Dia interrupted that frantic flood. "Helpless, is he?"

"Pretty much. Could you possibly give him a bed for the night?" Ayame felt awful making such a request.

"Oh, yes..." Dia coughed suddenly, evidently clearing her throat, and added very stiffly, "yes, I suppose I could."

"Thanks." Ayame sagged with relief.

"We're going to go for a little walk, Houjo" she said winsomely as she yanked the blanket off him again.

Running through his pockets, she extracted his car keys and, anchoring a long arm round her shoulder, tried to haul him off the bed. "Houjo, you weigh a ton!" she groaned in frustration.

"Allow me" Kouga breathed savagely from behind her.

In dismay, Ayame released her hold on Houjo. In a display of far from reassuring strength, Kouga accomplished the feat of getting Houjo upright again.

"Where are you taking him?" Kouga demanded roughly.

"Not far. Just get him down into his car. Don't...don't hurt him" she muttered anxiously on the stairs, as Houjo staggered and Kouga anchored a hand as gentle as a meat hook into the back of his sweater.

Houjo loaded up, Ayame swung into the driver's seat of the Porsche and ignited the engine,

"Where we goin'?" Houjo mumbled.

"You'll see." she didn't have the heart to tell him. He had found himself at the withering end of Dia's sharp and clever tongue too often. Handing him over drunk and incapable of self-defense was the equivalent of handing a baby to a cannibal.

Dia had heard the car. She walked out into the lane and had the passenger door open before Ayame had even alighted.

"Dia...?'"Houjo was moaning in horror.

"Relax, Houjo" Dia purred, sounding all maternal and caring. "I'm going to look after you."

Ayame gaped at her friend over the car bonnet. "Dia...what's going on?"

"Have you any idea how long I've waited for a chance like this?" Dia whispered back, her eyes gleaming as she reached up to smooth a soothing hand over Houjo's tousled dark hair. "Blondes are bad news for you, Houjo" she told him in a mesmeric tone of immense compassion. "yesh" Ayame heard Houjo agree slavishly as Dia guided him slowly towards the lodge.

Dia was either planning to lull Houjo into a false sense of security before she turned a hose on him in the back garden to sober him up, or she was planning to persuade Houjo that his dream woman had finally arrived in the unexpected shape of a small but very attractive brunette. Ayame walked back up to the folly. Kouga was waiting in the hall for her.

He didn't even stop to draw breath. "What was that drunken idiot doing here tonight?" he demanded rawly.

"For goodness' sake, he often stays, and he doesn't normally drink like that. He brings his girlfriends here too" Ayame proffered tautly. "I don't know where you get the idea that we're lovers—"

"Three years ago, you almost married Houjo. He jilted you!" Kouga reminded her savagely. "Porca miseria... do you expect me to believe that he's now only a platonic friend?"

"Yes, I do expect you to believe that." Ayame met his burnished gaze levelly.

"Even though he's the father of your child?" Kouga framed with driven ferocity.

Ayame turned pale as milk. "I assure you that Shiori is not Houjo 's child."

The tense silence simmered, but she saw some of the tension ease in Kouga's angry stance. Desperate to know what Kouga was thinking now that she had made that admission, Ayame murmured tautly, "Until Houjo and I both fell for other people, neither of us realized what was missing in our relationship. We stayed friends. He's a terrific guy, kind, caring..."

Kouga's mouth twisted as he listened, hooded eyes hard as stones as he followed her into the drawing room. "Mr. wonderful... Mr. Perfect"

"No...He does tend to tell the same horsy stories and jokes over and over again."

Ayame was surprised that he had made no further comment on the subject of Shiori's paternity. Heavens, did he still think there had been other men in her life, then?

"And he's thicker than a block of wood...don't forget that minor imperfection" Kouga slotted in dryly.

"But why didn't you tell him that you're married? Accidenti...so close a friend and he didn't even know I existed!"

"Tonight was the first time I'd seen him since our wedding, but I didn't have time to talk to him because I had to go out. When did you arrive?'

"After six. I did not expect to arrive here and find another man in residence!"

Ayame blinked, and thought about the last enervating half-hour. Kouga had behaved like a jealous, possessive husband and instinctively she had reacted like a foolish and insecure new wife, eager to placate him. Kouga, jealous? It was a stunning concept.

"Were you jealous when you thought Houjo was my lover?" Ayame asked baldly.

Kouga stilled and sent her a gleaming glance from below inky black lashes. "I am naturally jealous of my dignity."

"Your dignity?" her hopeful face had fallen by a mile.

"Is it unreasonable for me to expect you to behave like a normal wife?" Kouga countered levelly. "In the light of your previous relationship with him, inviting Houjo to stay here alone with you was most unwise—"

"Unwise" Ayame parroted, thinking what a bloodless, passionless word that was.

"As my wife, you are now in the public eye, and a potential target for damaging gossip. Surely you can't want anyone to have cause to suspect at this early stage that there is anything seriously wrong with our marriage?"

Ayame slowly nodded. He wasn't jealous. He was just an arrogant, macho male, determined to preserve his own public image. People might laugh if they suspected his wife was being unfaithful, and he wouldn't like that. "By the way, I settled your mortgage" Kouga remarked with stupendous casualness.

Ayame's lower lip parted company with her upper in shock.

Brilliant dark eyes intent on her aghast expression, Kouga continued smoothly, "as you're so independent, I imagine you'll wish to repay me once you inherit your godmother's money, but in the short term you are no longer burdened by those substantial monthly payments."

Ayame stumbled into speech. "But, Kouga... what right—?"

"I haven't finished yet. I have also had a word with your bank manager. There is no longer a limit on your overdraft. Don't throw it all back in my face" he urged almost roughly, openly assessing her shaken, troubled face. "I had no right to interfere, but I had a very powerful need to offer you what help I could."

Still reeling, Ayame swallowed hard. She understood, oh, yes, she understood. Kouga felt guilty. This was his way of making amends. His intervention on such grounds filled her with pained discomfiture, but she was in no position to refuse his efforts on behalf of the estate. He was making it possible for her to survive and re-employ the staff.

"Thanks" she said stiltedly.

"I would have liked to do a great deal more, cara mia" Kouga admitted steadily. "But I knew you wouldn't have accepted that."

At that respectful acknowledgement, a slow, uncertain smile drove the tension from her tense mouth. "Did you park your wings outside?"

"My wings?"

"You'd make a really good guardian angel."

"I was afraid you were about to say fairy godmother" Kouga confided.

"It did cross my mind." Ayame wrinkled her nose and laughed for the first time in weeks. And then she remembered what she still had to tell him and her face shadowed. Tomorrow, she decided, she would tell him tomorrow...

It was half past eight when the Victorian bell on the massive front door shrieked and jangled.

Kouga was in the library, having excused himself to make some calls, and Ayame had gone upstairs to slide into an outfit that magically accentuated her every slender curve. Green, with a fashionably short skirt and fitted jacket. She thought it looked kind of sexy on her. she slid her feet into high heels and fiddled anxiously with her hair in the mirror. And the whole time she was engaged on that transformation she refused to think about why she was doing it.

When Ayame opened the door, out of breath from rushing full tilt down the stairs, her sensitive stomach somersaulted when she saw Sumiko and Akane standing outside. Her stepmother elegant in black, and her stepsister dressed to kill in a sugar-pink dress so perilously short it made Ayame's skirt look like a maxi.

Both women did a rather exaggerated double take over her altered image.

"Is that a Galliano?" Akane demanded in an envious shriek.

"A...a what?" Ayame countered blankly.

"And those shoes are Prada! He got you out of your barbour and your wellies fast enough!"

Akane gibed thinly.

"It's such a dangerous sign when a man tries to change a woman into something she's not." On her lofty passage towards the drawing room, Sumiko winced. "And green simply screams at your red hair, Ayame!"

"But Ayame doesn't have red hair" a deep, dark drawl interceded across the depth of the hall from the library doorway "it's titian, a shade defined by the dictionary as a bright, golden auburn."

Ayame threw Kouga the sort of look a drowning swimmer gives to a life jacket.

Sumiko and Akane weren't quite quick enough to conceal their dismay and surprise at Kouga's appearance.

"I understood that you were still in Italy, Kouga." her stepmother's smile of greeting was stiff. "I thought that might be why you were here." as Kouga strolled over to the fireplace and took up a relaxed stance there, he let that statement hang a split-second, while their uninvited visitors tensed with uncertainty at his possible meaning before continuing smoothly, "how very kind of you to think that Ayame might be in need of company."

"I'm sure Houjo's been dropping in too," Akane said innocently.

"Yes, and what a very entertaining guy he is" Kouga countered, smiling without skipping a beat while Ayame 's fascinated gaze darted back and forth between the combatants. Sumiko and Akane had definitely met their match.

"Akane and I were only saying yesterday what a coincidence it is that Ayame and Kagome Higurashi should have got married within weeks of each other!' Sumiko exclaimed, watching Ayame stiffen with suspicious eyes.

"Now what was the name of Kagura Takeda's other godchild?"

'Rin,' Ayame muttered tightly "why?"

"Naturally I'm curious. That old woman left such an extraordinary will! I expect we'll be hearing of Rin's marriage next..."

"I doubt it" Ayame slotted in. "when I last saw her, Rin had no plans to marry."

Akane directed a brilliant smile at Kouga and crossed her fabulous long legs, her abbreviated dress riding so high Ayame wouldn't have been surprised to see panty elastic. "I bet you haven't a clue what we're talking about, Kouga." Sumiko chimed in, "I'm afraid it did cross my mind that Ayame might—"

"Might marry me to inherit a measly one million?" sardonic amusement gleamed in Kouga's steady appraisal. "Yes, of course I know about the will, but I can assure you that an eccentric godmother's wishes played no part whatsoever in my desire to marry your stepdaughter."

"Yes," Ayame agreed, getting into the spirit of his game with dancing green eyes 'I believe Kouga would say that when he married me, he had his own private agenda."

"Ouch" Kouga breathed for her ears alone, and her cheeks warmed.

But Sumiko was not so easily silenced. "I don't know how to put this without seeming intrusive...but frankly I was concerned when I learnt from friends locally that Ayame had come home alone after spending only forty-eight hours with you in Venice—"

"Mummy...it's hardly likely to be her favorite place," Akane said with a meaningful look.

'I love Venice" Ayame returned squarely.

"I know, you gave your poor child that silly second name— Venezia—but I notice you soon gave up using it" Sumiko reminded her dryly.

"Venezia?" Kouga queried abruptly.

Ayame's sensitive insides turned a sick somersault. She encountered a narrowed stare of bemusement from Kouga and turned her head away abruptly.

"Such a silly name!" Akane giggled. "But then Ayame never did have much taste or discretion." Ayame felt too sick to glance again in Kouga's direction.

Her nerves were shot to hell. She wanted to put a sack over Akane and suffocate her before she said too much.

"Your sense of humor must often cause deep offence" Kouga drawled with chilling bite, studying Akane with contempt. "I have zero tolerance for anything that might distress my wife."

Two rosy high spots of red embellished Akane's cheeks. Heavens, Ayame thought in equal shock, he sounded so incredibly protective. Her strain eased as she realized that Akane had abandoned her intent to make further snide comments about Shiori.

"Yes, you were very thoughtless, Akane" Sumiko agreed sharply.

"That's all in the past now. I actually came here today to express my very genuine concern over something Ayame has done."

"Really, Sumiko?" Ayame was emboldened by the supportive hand Kouga had settled in the shallow indentation of her spine.

"You brought Kouga to the engagement party I held and not one word did you breathe about his exalted status" Sumiko returned thinly.

To enervated to be able to guess what her stepmother was leading up to, Ayame saw no relevance whatsoever to that statement.

"So what on earth persuaded you to do this?" her stepmother drew a folded magazine from her capacious bag, her face stiff with distaste and disapproval. "Is there anything you wouldn't do for money, Ayame? How could you embarrass your husband like that?" instant appalled paralysis afflicted Ayame. Her green eyes zoomed in on the magazine which contained that dreadful gushing interview, and in the same second she turned the color of a ripe tomato, her stomach curdling with horror. Embarrassment choked her.

Sumiko shook her blonde head pityingly. "I was horrified that Ayame should sell the story of your marriage to a lurid gossip magazine, Kouga."

"Whereas I shall treasure certain phrases spoken in that interview for ever" Kouga purred in a tone of rich complacency, extending his arm to ease Ayame's trembling, anxious length into the hard, muscular heat of his big frame. "When I read about Ayame's 'mystical sense of wonder' and her 'spiritual feeling of soul-deep recognition' on first meeting me, I envied her ability to verbalize sensations and sentiments which I myself could never find adequate words to describe."

"Kouga?" Ayame mumbled shakily, shattered that he had actually read that interview and absorbed sufficient of her mindless drivel to quote directly from it. But Kouga, it seemed, was in full appreciative flow.

"Indeed, I was overwhelmed by such a powerful need to be with Ayame again I flew straight here to her side. I shall; always regard that interview as an open love letter from my wife."

For the space of ten seconds Sumiko and Akane just sat there, apparently transfixed. "Of course, I'm very relieved to hear that the interview hasn't caused any friction between you. I was so worried it would" Sumiko responded unconvincingly.

"You surprise me" fabulous bone structure grim, eyes wintry, Kouga studied their visitors. "Only a fool could fail to see through your foolish attempts to diminish Ayame in my eyes. She is a woman of integrity, and how she contrived to hang onto that integrity growing up with two such vicious women is nothing short of a miracle!"

"How dare you talk to me like that?" Sumiko gasped, rising to her feet in sheer shock.

"You resent my wife's ownership of an estate which has been within her family for over four hundred years. You're furious that she has married a rich man who will help her to retain that home. You hoped she would be forced to sell up because you planned to demand a share of the proceeds" Kouga condemned with sizzling distaste. "That is why I dare to talk to you as I have."

"I'm not staying here to be insulted" Sumiko snapped, stalking towards the door.

"I think that's very wise."

Kouga listened to the thud of the massive front door with complete calm.

Stunned at what had just transpired, Ayame breathed. "I need to check on Shiori..."

"Venezia" Kouga murmured softly, catching her taut fingers in his as she started up the stairs. "Obviously you chose that name because it held a special significance for you. You were happy with me that night in Venice?"

"y-yes" Ayame stammered.

"But we met in what was clearly a troubled and transitional phase of your life." His lean, strong features were taut, as if he was selecting his words with great care. "I understand now why you so freely forgave Houjo for jilting you. Evidently he wasn't the only guilty party. You went to bed with someone other than him before that wedding."

"No, I didn't!" angry chagrined color warmed Ayame's face as she stopped dead in the corridor.

"Accidenti! What's the point of denying it?" Kouga demanded in exasperation. "You may well not have been aware of the fact that night, but you were pregnant when you first met me!"

"No...I wasn't" Ayame told him staunchly, pressing open the door of Shiori 's bedroom. "You're still barking up the wrong tree!"

"You must've been pregnant" Kouga contradicted steadily, as if he was dealing with a child fearfully reluctant to own up to misbehavior. "Your daughter was born seven months later."

"Shiori was premature. She spent weeks in hospital before I could bring her home..." Ayame held her breath in the silence which followed, and then steeled herself to turn and face him.

Kouga had a dazed, disconcerted look in his dark, deep-set eyes. He stared at her. "She was premature?" he breathed, so low he had to clear his throat to be audible.

"So you see, now that you've been through the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, as they say in the nursery rhyme, we're running out of possible culprits" Ayame pointed out unsteadily, her throat tight, her mouth dry, her heart thumping like mad behind her breastbone. "And to be honest, there only ever was one possibility, Kouga."

In the dim light, his eyes suddenly flashed pure gold. "Are you trying to tell me that...that Shiori is mine?" he whispered raggedly.


	22. The vengeful husband 11

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Eleven

Ayame's voice let her down when she most needed it. As Kouga asked that loaded question she gave a fierce, jerky nod, and she didn't take her strained gaze from him for a second. black spiky lashes screened his sensational eyes. He blinked. He was stunned.

Ayame swallowed and relocated her voice. "And there's not any doubt about it because Houjo and I never slept together. We had decided to wait until we were married."

"Never?" Kouga stressed with hoarse incredulity. Ayame grimaced. "And, since we didn't get married, we never actually made it to bed."

"That means...but that means that I would've been your first...impossible—" Kouga broke off and compressed his lips, studying her with shaken dark eyes.

Ayame reddened. "I didn't want you to guess that night. You said virgins were deeply unexciting" she reminded him accusingly.

"We both said and did several foolish things that night...but fortunately making Shiori was not one of them." With a roughened laugh that betrayed the emotions he was struggling to contain, Kouga closed his hands on hers to draw her closer while he gazed endlessly down at Shiori, and then back at Ayame, as if he was being torn in two different directions. "Per amor di dio... the truth has been staring me in the face from the start," he groaned. "The fact that nobody knew who the father of your child was. You wouldn't say because you couldn't say...you didn't even know my name!" Her anxious eyes were vulnerably wide. Slowly Kouga shook his glossy dark head. "I saw that photo of Houjo, and he's dark as well. I assumed he was her father and that you still loved him enough to protect him. Then, when you said he wasn't, it still didn't occur to me that she could be my child!"

"You didn't know Shiori was born prematurely. She arrived more than six weeks early."

"I want to wake her up to look at her properly" Kouga confided a little breathlessly as he suddenly released Ayame to look down at his daughter. "But that's the first lesson she taught me. Don't disturb her when she's asleep!"

"She sleeps like the dead, Kouga."

"Where were my eyes?" he whispered in unconcealed wonder. "She has my nose—"

"She got just about everything from you." As she hovered there Ayame was feeling slightly abandoned, and, pessimist that she had been, she was unprepared for Kouga's obvious excitement at the discovery that he was a father.

Excitement? No, she certainly hadn't expected that. But then nothing had gone remotely like any of her vague imaginings of this scene. Kouga had been shocked, but he had skipped the mortifying protest stage she had feared and gone straight into acceptance mode.

"She's really beautiful" Kouga commented with considerable pride.

"Yes, I think so too" Ayame whispered rather forlornly.

"Per meraviglia...I'm a father. I'd better get on to my lawyer straight away—"

"I beg your pardon? Your lawyer?"

"If I was to drop dead tonight before I acknowledge her as my daughter, she could end up penniless!" Kouga headed straight for the door. "I'll call him right now." Drop dead, then, Kouga.

Ayame's eyes prickled and stung. She sniffed. Of course she didn't mean that. In fact just thinking of anything happening to Kouga pierced her to the heart and terrified her, but it was hard to cope with feeling like the invisible woman.

"Aren't you coming?" Kouga glanced back in at her again.

She sat in the library, watching him call his lawyer. Then he called his sister, and by the sound of the squeals of excitement Yuri was delighted to receive such a stunning announcement. "Shiori is mine. Obviously it was meant to be" Kouga drawled, squaring his shoulders as he sank down into the armchair opposite her. "Now I want to hear everything from the first minute you suspected you might be pregnant."

"I was about five months gone before I worked that out."

"Five months?" Kouga exclaimed.

"I didn't put on much weight, didn't have any morning sickness or anything. I was eating a lot, and I got a bit of a tummy, and then I got this really weird sort of little fluttery feeling...that's what made me go to the doctor. When he told me it was the baby moving I was shocked rigid!"

"I imagine you were." Kouga's spectacular dark eyes were brimming with tender amusement. Rising lithely from his chair, he settled down on the sofa beside her and reached for her hand to close it between his long fingers. "So you weren't ill?"

"Healthy as a horse."

"And how did your family react?"

"My father was pretty decent about it, but I think that was because he was hoping I'd have a boy" Ayame admitted ruefully. "He didn't give two hoots about the gossip, but Sumiko was ready to kill me. She went round letting everyone believe the baby was Houjo's because, of course, that sounded rather better."

"What did you tell your family about Shiori 's father?"

"More or less the truth...ships that pass...said I'd forgotten your name" Ayame admitted shamefacedly.

"How alone you must have felt" Kouga murmured heavily, his grip on her small hand tightening. "But that night you gave me to understand that you were protected."

"I honestly thought I was. I didn't realize that you had to take those wretched contraceptive pills continuously to be safe...and, of course, I'd tossed them in the bin the first morning I was in Venice!"

"If only you hadn't run away from the apartment—"

"You'd have stuck the police on me instead."

"I wouldn't have. Had you stayed, your innocence would never have been in doubt. Why?" Kouga emphasized, intent, dark golden eyes holding her more evasive gaze. "Why did you run away?"

"It's pretty embarrassing waking up for the first time in a strange man's bed" Ayame said bluntly. "I felt like a real tart—"

"You don't know the first thing about being a tart, so don't use that word" Kouga censured with frowning reproof.

But a split second later he was smiling that utterly charismatic smile of his, sending her heartbeat bumpety bumpety-bump as he asked all sorts of questions about Shiori, demonstrating a degree of interest that was encyclopedic in its detail. At the end of that session, he murmured with considerable assurance, "well...there'll be no divorce now, cara mia"

Even though that development was what Ayame had hoped for from the instant she knew that she loved Kouga, she didn't like the background against which he had formed that instant arrogant supposition. She tugged her hand free of his, her face frozen. "Why? Do you know something I don't?"

Kouga dealt her a startled, questioning look. "We have a child. She needs both of us. I simply assumed—"

"I don't think you should be assuming anything in that line!" Ayame told him roundly. "It may be important that Shiori has a father, but I'm concerned about what I need too"

"You need me" Kouga breathed a shade harshly, all relaxation now wiped from his taut features and not a hint of a smile left either.

Ayame flew upright. "Don't look at me like that!"

"In what way am I looking at you?" Kouga enquired forbiddingly.

"Like I'm a bad debtor or something, and you're...you're trying to work out my achilles' heel!" suddenly frightened by the awareness that she was heading for an argument with him and that she didn't want that, didn't trust her own overwrought and confused emotions, or her too often dangerously blunt tongue, she said tightly, "look, I'm very tired. I'm going up to bed"

From the foot of the stairs she glanced back into the library. Kouga was standing by the window, ferocious tension screaming from his stillness. Her heart sank at the sight. Everything had gone wrong from the moment she questioned his conviction that they should now view their marriage as a real marriage.

And why the heck had she done that? Why, when she herself longed for that stupid agreement they had made to be set aside and totally wiped from both their memories? Why had she refused the offer of her own most heartfelt wish?

And she saw into herself then, was forced to confront her own insecurity. She feared that Kouga only wanted their marriage to continue for Shiori's benefit. Hadn't she felt threatened and excluded by his unashamed absorption and delight in Shiori? How foolish and selfish that had been, on the very night he first learned that he was a father! Feeling considerably less bolshie, Ayame made up her bed with fresh sheets. She took the dogs down the service stairs to-sleep in the kitchen. Then she donned a strap oyster colored satin nightie and slid between the sheets to wait for Kouga.

But an hour later, when she heard footsteps in the corridor and tensed with a fast-beating heart, Kouga passed by her room. In the silence of the old house she listened to him enter the room Houjo had briefly occupied earlier and close the door. She fell back against the pillows then, shaken, hurt and scared...utterly out of her depth with this Kouga who was not even tempted to make love to her after an absence of three weeks.

"Fabulous apartment" Dia sighed when she arrived for lunch, scanning the fantastic view of London from the penthouse. "And Kouga...he is the perfect man; I am totally convinced of that. The guy that clears off without a murmur so that you can have lunch with your best friend is special, and when he takes the toddler with him, he zooms up the scale of perfection and hits the bell at the top!"

"He's a very committed father."

"I wouldn't say he was a slow starter in the husband stakes either. In one month, he has transformed your life. He even brings you flowers and cute little gifts... Houjo's not into flowers, but he gave me a sweater covered with embroidered horseshoes for my birthday. It is the most gross garment you have ever seen, but he phones me about five times a day, and he's so scared I'm going to dump him, it's unbelievable" Dia shared with a rather dreamy smile.

"I'm glad you're happy."

"Well, you don't look glad enough to satisfy me" Dia responded dryly. "I hope you're not turning into one of those spoilt little rich madams who can't appreciate what she's got!"

Ayame managed to laugh. "Can you see the day?"

"No, but I know by your expression that there's something badly wrong, and that was an easy way to open the subject!"

Ayame thought back over the last four weeks. The folly estate was now employing a full quota of staff, not to mention giving added employment to all the local firms engaged in the repairs and improvements which Kouga had insisted the house required without further delay. While that work was going on they had set up temporary home in London at Kouga 's apartment, and when the summer was over they were shifting to Venice, where they would make their permanent home.

"Has he got another woman?"

"Of course he hasn't!" Ayame said, aghast.

"He's not violent or alcoholic or anything like that, is he?"

"Dia!" Ayame took a deep breath. "He just doesn't love me."

"This is the problem that has you moping about like a wet weekend?" Dia breathed incredulously. "Kouga arranges to fly me up here in a helicopter to have lunch with you as a surprise... he hangs on your every word, watches your every move...I mean, the guy's so besotted he's practically turning somersaults to impress!"

Ayame shrugged, unimpressed, gloom creeping over her again. They were sleeping in separate bedrooms. He hadn't made the slightest move to change that. It was as if sex didn't exist any more. And she couldn't forget that he had once admitted that possibly his belief that she was a thief had been the most dangerous part of her attraction. And it was as if her sex appeal had vanished overnight. Yet, aside from that, loads of really positive things were happening in their relationship...

Although she wasn't sure that being more hopelessly in love with Kouga than ever was a positive thing. He was being caring, kind, supportive and considerate of her every need bar the one. He never lost his temper—no, not even when Shiori had drawn all over a set of important business documents that had had to be replaced at supersonic speed before a big meeting.

He took her out to dinner all the time. He took her to parties. He behaved as if he was very proud of her and paid her lots of compliments. He laughed, he smiled, he was a dirty great ray of constant sunshine, but when night fell he climbed into his own bed.

"Have you mentioned that you love him yet? I don't think it would be immediately obvious from your current demeanor" Dia opined rather dryly. "Or maybe he's just not very good with the words."

An hour after Dia's departure for home, Shiori bounced into her mother's bedroom to show off the latest pair of new frilly socks on display. They had three layers of hand-made lace round the ankle. She was tickled pink with them. Shiori was just one great big sunny smile these days. She had her mother, her adoring father and a devoted nanny, not to mention shelves groaning with toys. As she danced out again, a restive bundle of energy, Kouga strolled in.

"Did you enjoy seeing Dia?" he enquired.

"Yes, it was great...I should've invited her up myself, but I knew she wouldn't want to be away for long, not with her romance with Houjo hotting up the way it is."

Just looking at him, she felt her mouth run dry and her pulses race. So she had learnt not to look at him directly. One quick, sneaky glance and then away again. If he didn't find her attractive any more, then the very last thing she needed was for him to guess that she was suffering withdrawal symptoms of the severest, cruelest kind. But that one sneaky glance she stole was enough to send her dizzy. Either Kouga literally did get more gorgeous with every passing day, or she was more than usually susceptible.

In her mind's eye, she summoned him up. Casual silver-grey suit superbly fitted to his wide shoulders, lithe hips and long powerful legs, worn with a cashmere sweater the color of charcoal. He radiated sex appeal in waves she could feel. In much the same way that secret radar could feel the impact of those stunning dark eyes of his watching her.

"Ayame...I invited Dia here in the hope that you would relax with her" Kouga imparted tautly. "But it doesn't seem to have done much good."

"You can't put a plaster on something that isn't broken."

"Is that one of those strange English nursery sayings?" Kouga enquired.

Ayame didn't even know why she had said it, except to fill the tense silence, so she wasn't able to help him there. She twisted back to him but didn't meet his eyes.

"You know something, cara mia?" Kouga breathed in a dangerous tone. "I have decided that tact, patience and sensitivity do not work with you."

"Probably not" Ayame conceded, wondering why he had raised his voice slightly.

"In fact any man foolish enough to devote himself to the hopeless task of winning your trust would probably hit his deathbed before he got there."

"Winning my trust?" Ayame repeated.

"What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past month?" Kouga suddenly splintered at her in raw frustration.

And the strands of pain in that intonation made her look straight at him. She saw the same lonely ache there that she saw in her own face every time she stared in the mirror, and she stilled in shock.

Kouga spread his hands in a familiar gesture that tugged at her heart. "One minute you give me hope, the next you push me down" he groaned. "Y don't need you to tell me that I made an appalling hash of our relationship, but I've been trying really hard to make up for that...only you seem to be getting further and further away from me, and I can't bear that when I love you so much!"

"You...you love me?" Ayame whispered shakily.

"You told me that you fell for me, too, that night in Venice, and that gave me hope."

"If you love me why have you been sleeping in another room?" Ayame demanded accusingly. "Why don't you touch me any more?"

Kouga gave her a sincerely pained appraisal. "I wanted you to appreciate that I really loved you."

"Bloody funny way of showing it" she mumbled helplessly, not knowing whether she was on her head or her heels. "I've been so miserable."

In one stride, Kouga closed the distance between them. "I was waiting for you to give me some sign that you still wanted me...I couldn't afford to take anything for granted about this marriage!"

"If you love me" Ayame breathed headily, "you can take me for granted all you like."

With a muffled groan, Kouga brought his mouth down

Hard on hers and set off a devastating chain reaction of lust through her entire quivering body. He crushed her so close she couldn't breathe, backed up towards the door to turn the lock and then lifted his dark head again. "I've never, been so frustrated in my life...I ache for you, cara mia."

She let her hand travel up over one blunt cheekbone in a caress and framed his face, her eyes full of love. "Me too... I've been pretty stupid, putting my pride ahead of everything, closing you out when I needed you instead of showing it. I love you loads...and loads...and loads" she told him a little tearfully, because her emotions were running so high they were right up there with the clouds. "You should've been able to tell that a mile off!"

"You wouldn't even look at me any more!"

She gave him a flirtatious scrutiny from below curling lashes as he drew her hand down from his face and planted a kiss in the centre of her palm. "You're a minx" he told her huskily.

"I like the guy to do all the running. You see, the one time I did it the other way round, I ended up climbing out of a window with a burglar alarm screaming—and I also ended up pregnant" she pointed out in her own defense.

"Shiori 's so precious, she could never be a source of regret" Kouga countered. "I really fell for you in a very big way that night three years ago."

"I find that so hard to believe—"

"That's because you don't think enough of yourself" he scolded. "You knocked me for six. You were so different from every other woman I had ever met. I fell asleep that night with you in my arms, and I felt pretty damned smug and self-satisfied—"

"And then it all went horribly wrong."

"And I spent three insanely frustrating years trying to track you down... make no mistake, I was totally obsessed" Kouga confided ruefully. "I never admitted to myself how I really felt about you, but I could hardly wait for our wedding...all I allowed myself to think about was getting you back into bed."

"I noticed that was a fairly big issue straight off."

Kouga flushed. "I just didn't know what was going on inside my own head, but I was incredibly happy I had you back in my bed, under my roof, trapped... then Yuri confessed, and it was like being plunged into a big black loser's hole."

"I know" she sighed, sympathetically,

"And that was when I finally realized I loved you" he groaned. "I'd blown it every way possible. All I had to hang onto was that stupid agreement we'd made for a platonic marriage...what else did you need me for?"

"Gosh, I never thought of that..."

"So I decided you could comfortably do without being reminded of what a bastard I'd been for a couple of weeks. But it was hell without you" Kouga confessed as he bent and swept her possessively up into his arms and carried her over to the bed. "And then Hakaku handed me that magazine interview to read, I know you don't truly think that I'm that wonderful, but by the time I'd read it about ten times..."

Ayame kicked off her shoes. "So that's why you knew it by heart."

Kouga unzipped her dress, spread the edges back and planted his mouth almost reverently on a smooth bare shoulder. "I decided that if you really hated me, the odd sour note would've crept through. So, inspired by hope—"

"And a certain amount of ego..."

"I jumped straight on the jet" he completed, tugging her round in his arms to give her a reproachful look, "and when I realized that Shiori was my child, I was ecstatic. It meant I had another hold on you."

"But you jumped the gun, saying that because of Shiori we should stay married. Much as I love my daughter, I need to feel wanted for myself."

"I was clumsy. I pushed for too much too fast. I didn't dare tell you I loved you that soon because you would never, ever have believed me," Kouga informed her ruefully.

"I might've done...I'm more credulous and trusting than you are" Ayame teased, her heart singing with love and happiness as she collided with his brilliant dark eyes and the open tenderness there.

From the inside pocket of his jacket, Kouga withdrew a miniature gold box the shape of a casket. He snapped it open and removed the ornate gold ring within. The star-shaped ruby caught the light in its rich depths.

Ayame caught her breath and gasped, "this is it, isn't it...that wretched ring you thought I'd nicked?"

With a wolfish grin, Kouga lifted her hand and slid the medieval ring onto her wedding finger. "The adorata..."

"It really is gorgeous," Ayame whispered.

"Tradition holds that the adorata is given to a Wolf wife on the birth of the son and heir" Kouga shared huskily. "But this is the nineties, and I think it's time it was awarded simply for the birth of the first child."

"Yes, I like that" Ayame told him appreciatively. "None of that sexist rubbish about sons being more important in our family."

Kouga pressed his lips tenderly to the corner of her smiling mouth. "I didn't quite have the nerve to ask before now but...is there any chance you might be expecting another baby?"

"Not unless you've come up with some very kinky way of ravishing me mentally...no, not this time, but maybe some other time" she conceded softly, tenderly, as she laced her fingers blissfully through his luxuriant black hair. "Gosh, I love having the right to mess up your hair...it's so tidy all the rest of the time!"

"I didn't like it when you said bankers were boring" Kouga confided. "And then in that interview you said I was the most passionate man you had ever met."

"You are...about me, about Shiori. You're so intense beneath that cool front." Ayame gave a little feeling wriggle to stress how much she liked that.

"Has anybody ever told you how unbelievably sexy you look in Wellington boots?"

She giggled, something she never did. "I really, really believe that you love me now!"

Reaching up to claim his sensual mouth for herself again, Ayame gave herself up to the promise of a future full of blissful contentment and joy.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

**N/A: Hello everybody! I'm back! I know, I know… it took me quite enough time, but I was full of work.. but now I'm back… I hope you enjoyed these chapters.**

**NOW! We have one story left… I will be posting the next chapter as soon as I can, so, please be patient, I promise I will not take this long ok?**

**Reviews, as always, are highly appreciated :D**

**See ya all soon!**

**XOXO **

**Sahora**


	23. Contract baby 1

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

N/A #1: Before you start reading this chapter, I warn you all.. There is one small detail that will let you all like "what the..." but please give it a chance ok?

CHAPTER ONE

From the slim document case clasped in one strong pale hand, Takahashi Sesshomaru withdrew a large glossy photograph. "This is Okada Rin. In six weeks' time she will give birth to my child. I must find her before then."

Somehow primed to expect a gorgeous blonde with a supermodel face and figure, Jaken was disconcerted to find himself looking at a small, slim girl with a mane of hair the color of mahogany, soulful black eyes and an incredibly sweet smile. She looked so outrageously young and wholesome he just could not imagine her in the role of surrogate mother.

As a lawyer with a highly respected London firm, Matsumoto Jaken had dealt with some very difficult cases. But a surrogacy arrangement gone wrong? The surrogate mother on the run and probably determined to keep the baby? He surveyed his most wealthy and influential client with a sinking heart.

Takahashi Sesshomaru's fabled fortune was founded on gold and diamond mines. He was a brilliant business tycoon, a legendary polo player and, according to the gossip columns, a notorious womanizer. He was already prowling like a Black Panther ready to spring. Six feet two inches tall, with the sleek, supple build of a born athlete and the volatile temperament of his colorful heritage, he was an intimidating sight, even to a man who had known him from childhood.

"Jaken...I understood that my lawyer in New York had already briefed you on this situation," Sesshomaru drawled with barely concealed impatience.

"He said the matter was far too confidential to discuss on the phone. And I hadn't the slightest suspicion that you were planning to become a father through surrogacy" the older man admitted. "Why on earth did you embark on such a risky venture?"

"Por Dios...you watched me grow up! How can you ask me that?" Sesshomaru countered. Jaken looked uncomfortable. As a former employee of Sesshomaru's late father, he was well aware that Sesshomaru had had a pretty ghastly childhood. He might be rich beyond avarice, but he had not been anything like as lucky in the parent lottery.

His bronzed features taut, Sesshomaru expelled his breath in a slow hiss. "I decided a long time ago that I would never marry. I wouldn't give any woman that amount of power over me or, even more crucially, over any child we might have!" Fierce conviction roughened his rich, accented drawl. "But I've always been very fond of children—"

"Yes..." An unspoken-but hovered in the tense silence.

"Many marriages end in divorce, and usually the wife gets to keep the children" Sesshomaru reminded the lawyer with biting cynicism. "Surrogacy impressed me as the most practical way in which to father a child outside marriage. This wasn't an impulsive decision, Jaken. When I decided to go ahead, I went to a lot of trouble to ensure that I would choose a suitable mother for my child."

"Suitable?" Jaken was keen to hear what Sesshomaru, with his famed love of fast, glitzy society blondes, had considered 'suitable' in the maternal stakes.

"When my New York legal team advertised for a surrogate mother, they received a flood of applications. I employed a doctor and a psychologist to put a shortlist of the more promising candidates through a battery of tests, but the responsibility for the final choice was naturally mine."

The older man frowned down at the photograph of Okada Rin. "What age is she?"

"Twenty-one."

Jaken's frown remained. "She was the only suitable candidate?"

Sesshomaru tautened. "The psychologist did have some reservations but I decided to overlook them." Jaken looked shaken. "Everything that the psychologist saw in Rin I wanted in the mother of my child" Sesshomaru stressed without a shade of regret. "It was a gut feeling and I acted on it. Yes, she was young and idealistic, but she had the right moral values. She wasn't motivated by greed but by a desperate need to try and finance surgery which she hoped might extend her mother's life."

"I wonder how that desperation affected her ability to make a rational decision about what she was getting involved in" Jaken remarked.

"Wondering is a pointless exercise now that she is pregnant with my child" Sesshomaru countered very dryly. "But I will find her soon. Her background was exhaustively investigated. I now know that, just two months ago, she was at her godmother's home in Surrey. I don't yet know where she went from there. But before I do find her I need to know what my rights are in this country."

Jaken was in no hurry to break bad news before he had all the facts. British law frowned on surrogacy. If the mother wanted to keep the baby instead of handing it over, no contract was likely to persuade a British judge that taking that child from its mother was in the child's best interests.

"Tell me the rest of the story" he advised.

While running through the bare facts for the older man's benefit, Sesshomaru stared unseeingly out of the window, grimly recalling his first sight of Rin through a two-way mirror in the New York legal office. She had reminded him of a tiny porcelain doll.

Fragile, unusual and astonishingly pretty.

She had been brave and honest. And so impressively nice—not something Sesshomaru had ever sought in a woman before, but a trait he had found very appealing when he had considered all the positive qualities a mother might hand down to her child. Certainly Rin had been younger and less worldly wise than was desirable, but he had recognized her quiet inner strength as well as her essentially tranquil nature.

And the more Sesshomaru had watched Rin, the more he had learnt about Rin, the more he had wanted to meet her face to face, in the flesh, so that some day in the future he could comfortably answer his child's curious questions about her. But his New York lawyer had said absolutely not. Strict anonymity would be his only defense against any form of harassment in later years. But Sesshomaru had always been a ruthless rule-breaker, with immense faith in his own natural instincts, nor had he ever hesitated to satisfy his own wishes...

And acting on that essential arrogance, he conceded grudgingly now, was how everything had begun to fall apart. Worst of all, he who prided himself on his intelligence and his shrewd perceptive powers had somehow failed to notice the warning signs of trouble on the horizon

"So once you knew that the girl had successfully conceived, you installed her in a house in Vermont with a trusted family servant to look after her" Jaken recapped, because Sesshomaru had fallen silent again. "Where was her mother while all this was going on?"

"As soon as Rin signed the contract her mother wert into a convalescent home to build up her strength for surgery. She was very ill. The woman knew nothing about the surrogacy agreement. When Rin was only a couple of weeks pregnant, her mother had the operation. Rin had been warned that her mother's chances of survival were at best only even. She died two days after surgery," Sesshomaru revealed heavily.

"Unfortunate."

Sesshomaru slung him a fulminating glance of scorn. Unfortunate? Rin had been devastated. And Sesshomaru had been uneasily conscious that her sole reason for becoming a surrogate had died that same day. Aware from the frustratingly brief reports made by the maid, Soledad, that Rin was deeply depressed; Sesshomaru had reached the point where he could no longer bear to stay at a supposedly sensible distance from the woman carrying his baby.

Understandably he had been concerned that she might miscarry. He had sincerely believed that it was his responsibility to offer her support. Isolated in a country that wasn't her own, only twenty-one-years old, pregnant with a stranger's baby and plunged deep into a grieving process that her optimistic outlook had not prepared her to face, the mother of his child had really needed a sympathetic shoulder.

"So I finally made contact with her" Sesshomaru admitted tautly. "Since I could hardly admit that I was the father of her baby, I had to employ a certain amount of deception to make that contact"

Unseen, Jaken winced. Sesshomaru should have avoided any form of personal involvement. But then Takahashi Sesshomaru was a disturbingly complex man. He was a merciless business opponent and a very dangerous enemy. More than one woman had come to grief on the rocks of his innate emotional detachment But Sesshomaru was also a renowned philanthropist, the most genuine of friends to a chosen few and a male still capable of powerful emotional responses.

Sesshomaru compressed his firm lips. "I took a weekend place near where she was staying and ensured that our paths crossed. I didn't conceal my identity; I didn't need to...the Takahashi name meant nothing to her. Over the following months, I flew up there regularly and called on her. I never stayed long... she just needed someone to talk to."

Radiating tension now, in spite of that studiously nonchalant explanation, Sesshomaru shrugged, his accented drawl petering out into another brooding silence.

"And?"

"And nothing!" As he swung round from the window, Sesshomaru's hard, golden eyes were sardonic in their comprehension. "I treated her like a little sister. I was a casual visitor, nothing more."

Jaken restrained himself from pointing out that since Sesshomaru was an only child he could only have the vaguest notion of how one treated a little sister. And Jaken had three daughters, every one of whom swooned at the mere mention of Sesshomaru's name. Indeed, the last time he had taken Sesshomaru home for dinner it had been a downright embarrassing experience, with all three daughters dressed to kill and competing for Sesshomaru's attention.

Even his wife said that Sesshomaru might well have been packaged by the devil specifically to tempt the female sex. He pictured a lonely young woman who might only have faced up to what surrogacy really meant in the aftermath of her mother's death. When that nice, naive young woman had suddenly found herself entertaining a member of the international jet set as self-assured, sophisticated and charismatic as Sesshomaru, what effect had it had on her?

"When did she go missing?" Jaken prompted.

"Three months ago. She disappeared one day... Soledad went out shopping and left her alone" Sesshomaru confided grimly. "Do you realize that in three months I have hardly slept a night through? Day and night I have been worried sick—"

"I suppose there is a strong possibility that she may have gone for a termination—"

"Por Dios..." Sesshomaru dealt the older man a smoldering look of reproof. "Rin wouldn't abort my child!"

Content to have issued that warning, Jaken didn't argue.

"Rin's very soft, very feminine, very caring...she would never choose that option!" Sesshomaru continued to argue fiercely.

"You asked about your rights" Jaken breathed in deep, straightening his shoulders to brace himself for the blow he was about to deliver. "I'm afraid unmarried fathers don't have any under British law."

Sesshomaru stared back at him with rampant incredulity. "That isn't possible."

"You couldn't argue that the girl would make a bad mother either. After all, you chose her" the older man pointed out ruefully. "You described a respectable girl, drawn into a surrogacy agreement only because she was trying to help her mother. As the rich foreigner who used his wealth to tempt her into making a decision which she later regretted, you wouldn't look good in court—"

"But she has reneged on a legal contract" Sesshomaru spelt out harshly. "Dios mio! All I want is the right to take my own child back to Venezuela. I haven't the slightest desire to take this into a courtroom! There has to be some other way in which I can get custody."

Jaken grimaced. "You could marry her..."

Sesshomaru gave him a forbidding look. "If that was a joke, Jaken...it was in the worst possible taste."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Jinenji pulled out a chair for Rin to sit down to her evening meal. His mother, Fukushima Sakura, frowned at the young woman's shadowed black eyes and too prominent cheekbones.

At eight months pregnant, Rin looked drawn and ill.

"You should be resting at this stage of your pregnancy" Sakura reproved. "If you married Jinenji now, you could give up work. You could take things easy while he helped you get your godmother's will sorted out."

"It would be the best move you could make" Solid and bespectacled, with thinning fair hair, Jinenji nodded in pompous agreement. "You'll have to be careful that the Inland Revenue doesn't take too large a slice of your inheritance."

"I really don't want to marry anybody." Beneath her wealth of rich, reddish brown hair, Rin's delicate features were becoming stiff and her smile strained.

An awkward silence fell while mother and son exchanged meaningful glances. Rin focused on her nicely cooked meal with a guilty lack of appetite. It had been a mistake to take a room in Sakura's comfortable terraced home. But how could she ever have guessed that her late godmother's trusted housekeeper had had an ulterior motive for offering her somewhere to stay?

Sakura and her son knew the strange terms of Kagura's will. They knew that Rin would inherit a million pounds if she found a husband within the year and stayed married for at least six months. Sakura was determined to persuade Rin that marrying her son would magically solve her every problem.

And, to be fair to Sakura, calculating she might be, but she saw such a marriage as a fair exchange. After all, Rin was an unmarried mum-to-be and couldn't claim her godmother's money without a husband. Jinenji was single, and in a job he loathed. Even a small share of a million pounds would enable Jinenji to set up as a tax consultant in a smart office of his own. Sakura would do just about anything to further Jinenji's prospects, and Jinenji wasn't just attached to his widowed mother's apron strings, he was welded to them.

"Babies can be very demanding" Sakura pointed out when her son had left the room. "And, talking as someone who has done it, raising a child alone isn't easy."

"I know." But at the mere mention of the word 'baby' a vague and dreamy smile had formed on Rin's face. There was nothing practical or sensible about the warm feeling of anticipation which welled up inside her.

Sakura sighed. "I'm only trying to advise you, Rin. You're not in love with Jinenji, but where did falling in love get you?"

Rin's blissful abstraction was cruelly punctured by that reminder. "Nowhere" she conceded tightly.

"I've never liked to pry, but it's obvious that the father of your child took off the minute you got pregnant. Unreliable and irresponsible" the older woman opined thinly. "You certainly couldn't call my Jinenji either of those tilings."

Rin considered Jinenji's joyless and stolid outlook on life and suppressed a sigh.

"People don't always marry for love. People get married for all sorts of other reasons" Sakura persisted. "Security, companionship, a nice home…"

"I'm afraid I would need more." Rin got up slowly and heavily. "I think I'll lie down for a while before I go to work."

Breathless from climbing the stairs, Rin lay down on her bed in the prettily furnished spare room. She grimaced. Never in a million years would she marry Jinenji just to satisfy the terms of Kagura's will and inherit that money.

She was too shamefully conscious that a craving for money had reduced her to her present predicament. Her late father, a strongly religious man, had been fond of saying that money was the root of all evil. And, looking back to the twisted, reckless decision she had made months earlier, Rin knew that in her case that pronouncement had proved all too true.

Her mother had been dying. But Rin had refused to accept the reality that the mother she had grown up without and had barely had time to get to know again could be dying: she hadn't believed the hand of fate could be that cruel. Armed by that stubborn belief, Rin had gone that extra mile that people talked about, but she had gone that extra mile in entirely the wrong direction, she acknowledged wretchedly.

How could she ever have believed that she would find it possible to give her baby up to strangers? How could she ever have imagined that she could surrender all rights, hand over her own flesh and blood and agree never, ever to try and see her own child again?

She had been incredibly stupid and immature. So she had run away from a situation which had become untenable, knowing even then that she would be followed and eventually traced...

As the ever-present threat of being found and called to account for her behavior assailed, her skin turned clammy with fear. In her own mind she was no better than a criminal. She had signed a contract in which she had promised to give up her baby. She had sat back while an unbelievably huge amount of money was expended on her mother's medical care and then she had fled. She had broken the law, yet she had been wickedly and savagely deceived into signing that contract...but what proof did she have of that fact? Sometimes she woke from nightmares about being extradited to the USA and put on trial, her baby taken from her and parceled off to a life of luxury with his immoral and utterly unscrupulous father in Venezuela. Even when she didn't have bad dreams, it was becoming increasingly hard to sleep. She was at that point in pregnancy when she couldn't get comfortable even in bed, and she was often wakened by the strong, energetic movements of her baby.

And in her mind's eye then, when she was at her weakest, she would see Sesshomaru. Takahashi Sesshomaru, dark, devastating and dangerous. What a trusting and pathetic victim she had been! For she had fallen in love with him, hopelessly, helplessly, blindly in love for the first time in her life. She had lived only from one meeting to the next, frantically counting the days in between, agonized if he didn't turn up and always tormented by the secret she had believed she was still contriving to keep from him. A jagged laugh was torn from her lips now. And all the time Sesshomaru had known she was pregnant. After all, he was the father of her baby...

An hour later, Rin headed to work. It was a cool, wet summer evening. She walked past the bus stop. She was presently struggling to save every penny she could. Soon she wouldn't be able to work any more, and once she had the baby she would need her savings for all sorts of things. The supermarket where she worked shifts was a bright beacon of light and activity in the city street As Rin disposed of her coat and her bag in the rest room, the manageress popped her head round the door and frowned. "You look very tired, Rin. I hope that doctor of yours knows what he's doing when he tells you that it's all right for you to be still working."

Rin flushed as the older woman withdrew again. She hadn't actually seen a doctor in two months, but at her last visit she had been advised to rest. How could she rest when she had to keep herself? And if she approached the social services for assistance they would ask too many awkward questions. So she lived in a state of permanent exhaustion, back aching, ankles swollen, and if she pushed herself too hard she got blinding headaches and dizzy spells.

By the end of her shift on one of the checkouts Rin was very tired, and really grateful that she was off the next day. Tomorrow, she decided, she would pamper herself.

Shouldering her bag, she left the shop. The rain had stopped. The street lights gleamed off the wet pavements and cars swished by splashing the kerbs.

Rin didn't even try to close her coat. Only a tent would have closed round her swollen stomach, and the weight of her own body contributed to her fatigue. Not long now, she consoled herself. She felt as if she had been pregnant for ever, but soon she would be getting to know her baby as a separate little person.

Engaged in her thoughts of the near future, head down-bent Rin didn't register the existence of a large obstacle in her path. Only at the last possible moment, when she almost cannoned into the impossibly tall and solidly built male blocking her passage, did she notice the presence of another human being and seek to sidestep him.

As she teetered dangerously off balance, a cry of dismay escaping her, a pair of strong hands shot out to catch her by the shoulders and steady her. Heart pounding with fright, she reeled as he held her there, her head tipping back from a view of her rescuer's silver-grey silk tie to look up.

Takahashi Sesshomaru gazed down at her from his great height, his facial muscles locking his staggeringly handsome features into a pale mask of impassivity that was uniquely chilling.

In severe shock, Rin trembled, soft mouth opening and closing again without sound, a look of pure panic in her gaze as she collided with eyes that had the golden brilliance of a tiger ready to claw the unwary to the bone.

"There is no place in this whole wide world where you could hope to stay hidden from me" Sesshomaru spelt out in a controlled tone of immense finality, his rich, accented vowel sounds tingling in her sensitive ears, throwing up a myriad of despoil memories that could only torment her. "The chase is over."

N/A #2: OK! Here I am again starting the last of the stories of this fic. Some points I want to talk about:

1. Yes, I know that Sessh been from South America does not match with his name, style, etc etc…. but hey, there are people that live in these countries and are from Asian or European families so… why not?

2. It was brought up again that my grammar has some issues. I know and I'm so sorry. As I state since the beginning, my birth language is Spanish, but I try really hard to check the chapters and make them as easy to understand as possible. I hope I'm doing it right O.o. I thought about getting a beta. But then I told to myself: "really? At the end of the story?" So, please be patient with me :3

3. Answering the question from BoredGirl27: yes, the 3 stories are happening at the same time. They all need to be married within the first year after the will was read, and stay married for 6 months…

Thank you all so much for the support and lovely reviews. I hope you like this last part of the trilogy lol. See ya all on next chapter!

*****Thanks to bookworm4ever81 for point a couple of typos in the chapter :D corrected already!*******

XOXO

Sahora


	24. Contract baby 2

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

CHAPTER TWO

"Let me go, Sesshomaru!" Rin gasped convulsively, her heart thudding like a trapped animal's behind her breastbone, nervous perspiration beading her short upper lip.

"How can I do that?" Sesshomaru countered with level emphasis. "You're expecting my baby. What sort of a man could walk away?"

Without warning, pain flashed in a scorching burst across Rin's temples, provoking a startled moan from her parted lips. Her hand flew up to press against her throbbing brow. Nausea stirred nastily in her stomach as the overpowering dizziness washed over her.

"Por Dios...what is the matter with you?" Sesshomaru tightened his hold on her as she swayed like a drunk, straining with every sinew to stay upright and in control. In another moment he bent and swept her up into his arms, cradling her easily into the strength and heat of his big, powerful frame. As the street light shone on the grayish pallor of her upturned face, Sesshomaru emitted a groan and said something hoarse in Spanish.

"Put me down..." Rin was not too ill to appreciate the cruel irony of Sesshomaru getting that physically close to her for the very first time.

Ignoring her, chiseled profile aggressively clenched, Sesshomaru jerked his imperious silver head and the limousine parked across the street filtered over to the kerb. The chauffeur jumped out and hurried to open the passenger door. Sesshomaru settled her down on the squashy leather back seat, but before he could climb in beside her Rin took him by surprise and lurched half out again, to be violently sick in the gutter. Then she sagged back on the seat, pressing a tissue to her tremulous lips and utterly drained.

As she lay slumped on her side, a stunned silence greeted her. Momentarily, a dull gleam of amusement touched her. Takahashi Sesshomaru had probably got to the age of thirty-one without ever having witnessed such a distasteful event. And she hated him for being there to witness her inability to control her own body. Although she was the kind of person who automatically said sorry when other people bumped into her, a polite apology would have choked her.

"Do you feel strong enough to sit up?"

As she braced a slender hand on the seat beneath her Sesshomaru took over, raising her and propping her up like a rag doll. Involuntarily she breathed in the elusive scent of him. Clean, warm male overlaid with a hint of something more exotic.

"So you finally ran me to earth" Rin acknowledged curtly, refusing to look at him, staring into space with almost blank black eyes.

"It was only a matter of time. I went first to the house where you're staying. Fukushima Sakura wasn't helpful. Fortunately I was already aware of where you worked" Sesshomaru imparted flatly.

She could feel the barrier between them, high and impenetrable as toughened frosted glass, the high wire tension splintering through the atmosphere, the restive, brooding edge of powerful energy that Sesshomaru always emanated. But she felt numb, like an accident victim. He had found her. She had made every possible effort to remain undetected; moved to London, even lied to friends so that nobody had a contact address or phone number for her. And all those endeavors had been in vain. As a spasm of pain afflicted her, she squeezed her eyes tight shut.

"What is it?" Sesshomaru demanded fiercely.

"Feel like my head's splitting open" she mumbled sickly forcing her eyes open again. Sesshomaru was now studying the pronounced swell of her stomach with a shaken fascination that felt deeply, offensively intrusive.

In turn, Rin now studied him, pain like a poisonous dart piercing her bruised heart. His hair—White as snow now, but silver in sunlight—the strong, flaring ebony brows, the lean, arrogant nose, the magnificent high cheekbones and hollows, the wide, perfectly modeled mouth so eloquent of the raw sensuality that laced his every movement.

A devastatingly attractive male, so staggeringly good-looking he had to turn heads wherever he went, and yet only the most audacious woman would risk cornering him. There was reinforced steel in those hard bones, inflexible control in that strong jaw line.

The baby kicked, blanking out her mind, making her wince.

His incongruously long and lush black lashes swept up, and she was pinned to the spot by glinting gold eyes full of enquiry.

"May I?" he murmured almost roughly.

And then she saw his half-extended hand, those lean pale fingers full of such tensile strength, and only after a split second did she register in shock the source of his interest.

His entire attention was on the giant mound of her stomach, a strangely softened expression driving the tension from his firm lips.

"May I feel my child move?" he clarified boldly.

Rin gave him a stricken look of condemnation, and with shaking, frantic hands tried somewhat pointlessly to try and yank her coat over herself. "Don't you dare try to touch me!"

"Perhaps you are wise. Perhaps touching is not a good idea." Nostrils flaring, Sesshomaru flung himself back in the corner of the seat, hooded eyes betraying only a chilling glint of intent gold, his pale face cold as a guillotine, impassive now in icy self-restraint.

And yet Rin was reminded of nothing so much as a wild animal driven into ferocious retreat He had never looked at her like that in Vermont, but she had always sensed the primal passion of the temperament he restrained. Then, as now, it had exercised the most terrifying fascination for her—a male her complete opposite in nature, an outwardly civilized sophisticate in mannerism, speech and, behavior, but at heart never, ever cool, predictable or tranquil.

"Take me home" she muttered tightly. "I'll meet you tomorrow to talk."

He lifted the phone and spoke in fluid Spanish to his driver. Rin turned away. She remembered him in Vermont, addressing Soledad in Spanish. She remembered the maid's nervous unease, her undeniable servility. When Sesshomaru had been around, Soledad had tried to melt into the woodwork, too unsophisticated a woman to handle the cruel complexity of the situation he had unthinkingly put her in. In his eyes she had only been a servant after all. Takahashi Sesshomaru was not a male accustomed to taking account of the needs or the feelings of lesser beings...and in Soledad's case he had paid a higher price than he would ever know for that arrogance.

The powerful car drew away from the kerb and shot Rin's flailing and confused thoughts back to the present. While Sesshomaru employed the car phone to make a lengthy call in Spanish, she watched him helplessly from below her lashes. She scanned the width of his shoulders under the superb fit of his charcoal-grey suit, the powerful chest, lean hips and long muscular thighs that not the most exquisite tailoring in the world could conceal.

"I can't touch you but every look you give me is a visual assault" Sesshomaru derided in a whiplash aside as he replaced the phone. "I'd eat you for breakfast, little girl!"

Her temples throbbed and she closed her eyes, shaken that he could speak to her like many memories washed over her that she was cast into turmoil. Sesshomaru tender, laughing, amber eyes warm as the kiss of sunlight, without a shade of coldness. And every bit of that caring concern aimed at the ultimate well-being of the baby in her womb, at the physical body cocooning his child not at Rin personally. She had never existed for him on any level except as a human incubator to be kept calm, content and healthy. But how could she ever have guessed that shattering truth?

"You look terrible" Sesshomaru informed her tautly. "You've lost a lot of weight and you were very slim to begin with—"

"Nobody could ever accuse me of that now."

"Your ankles are swollen."

Rin rested her pounding head back wearily, beyond caring about what she must look like to him now. It scarcely mattered. She had been ten times more presentable in Vermont and he had not been remotely attracted to her, although she had only recognized that humiliating reality in retrospect. "You're not getting my baby" she warned him doggedly. "Not under any circumstances."

"Calm yourself" Sesshomaru commanded deflating. "Anxiety won't improve your health."

"It always comes first, right?" Rin could not resist sniping.

"Desde luego...of course" Sesshomaru confirmed without hesitation. She winced as another dull flash of pain made her very brain ache. She heard him open a compartment, the hiss of a bottle cap released, liquid tinkling into a glass, and finally another unrecognizable sound. And then she jerked in astonishment when an ice-cold cloth was pressed against her pulsing brow.

"I will take care of you now. Did I not do so before? And look at you now, like a living corpse..." Sesshomaru condemned his dark drawl alive with fierce undertones as he bent over her. "I wanted to shout at you. I wanted to make you tremble. But how can I do that when you are like this?" Her curling lashes lifted. Defenseless in pain, she stared up into frustrated and furious golden eyes so nakedly at variance with the compassionate gesture of that cool, soothing cloth he had drenched for her benefit. Being kind to her was killing him. She understood that. Suffering that grudging kindness was killing her.

"You taught me to hate" she whispered, with a sudden ferocity alien to her gentle nature until that moment.

The stunning eyes veiled to a slumberous gleam. "There is nothing between us but my baby. No other connection, nada mas...nothing more" he stressed with gritty exactitude. "Only when you can detach yourself from your emotional mindset and recall that contract will we talk."

Hatred flamed like a shooting star through Rin. She needed it. She needed hatred to race like adrenalin through her veins. Only hatred could swallow up and ease the agonizing pain Sesshomaru could inflict.

"You bastard" Rin muttered shakily. "You lying, cheating, devious bastard..." At that precise moment the limo came to a smooth halt. As the chauffeur climbed out, Rin gaped at the well-lit modern building with its beautifully landscaped frontage outside which the car had drawn up. "Where are we?" she demanded apprehensively.

A uniformed nurse emerged from the entrance with a wheelchair. In silence Sesshomaru swung out of the limo and strode round the bonnet to wave away the hovering chauffeur, He opened the door beside her himself.

"You need medical attention" he delivered.

Her shaken eyes widened, filling with instantaneous fear. Not for nothing had she visited the library to learn all she could from newspapers about Sesshomaru's ruthless reputation. "You're not banging me up in some lunatic asylum!" she flung in complete panic.

"Curb your wild imagination, chica. I would do nothing to harm the mother of my child. And don't you dare try to cause a scene when my only concern is for your well-being!" Sesshomaru warned with ferocious bite as he leant in and scooped her still resisting body out of the luxurious car as if she weighed no more than a feather.

"The wheelchair, sir" the nurse proffered.

"She weighs nothing. I'll carry her" Sesshomaru strode through the automatic doors, clutching her with the tense concern of someone handling a particular fragile parcel. The mother of his child. Cue for reverent restraint, she reflected bitterly. Restraint and concern that the human incubator should be proving less than efficient. But, weak and sick from pain, even her vision blurring, she rested her head down against a broad shoulder.

"Hate you" she muttered nonetheless, and would have told him that with her last dying breath because it was her only defense.

"You're not tough enough to hate" Sesshomaru dismissed as a grey-haired older man in a white coat moved towards them.

Sesshomaru addressed him in a flood of Spanish. Scanning her with frowning eyes, the doctor led the way into a plush consulting room on the ground floor.

"Why does nobody speak English? We're in London" Rin moaned.

"I'm sorry. Rodney Bevan is a consultant who worked for many years in a clinic of mine in Venezuela. I can talk faster in my own language." Sesshomaru laid her down carefully on a comfortable treatment couch.

"Go away now" Rin urged him feverishly. Sesshomaru stayed put. The consultant said something quiet in Spanish. Sesshomaru's blunt cheekbones were accentuated by a faint line of dark color. He swung on his heel and strode out to the waiting area, closing the door behind him.

"What did you say?" Rin was impressed to death. As the waiting nurse moved forward to help Rin out of her coat, the older man smiled. "You're the star here, not him."

The nurse took her blood pressure. Why were their faces so solemn? Was there something wrong with her blood pressure? Her body felt like a great weight pulling her down. "You need to relax and keep calm, Rin" the doctor murmured. "I want to give you a mild sedative and then I would like to scan you. Is that all right with you?"

"No, I want to go home" she mumbled fearfully, knowing she sounded like a child and not caring, because she didn't feel she could trust anybody so friendly with Sesshomaru. The voices went away. Sesshomaru's rich, dark drawl broke into her frantic barely half-formed thoughts.

"Rin...please let the medics do what they need to do" he urged. She forced her eyes open, focusing on him with difficulty, seeing those lean bronzed features through a blur. "I can't trust you...or him...you know him!"

And even in the state she was in she saw him react in shock to that frightened accusation. Sesshomaru turned pale, the fabulous bone structure clenching hard. He gripped her hand, brilliant eyes shimmering. "You must trust him. He's a very fine obstetrician—"

"He's a friend of yours."

"Si, pero...yes, but he is also a doctor" Sesshomaru stressed with highly emotive urgency.

"I don't want to go to sleep and wake up in Venezuela... Do you think I don't know what you're capable of when you're crossed?" Rin managed to frame with the last of her energy.

"I've never broken the law!"

"You would to get this baby" Rin told him. The silence smoldered, fireworks blazing under the surface.

Sesshomaru stared down at her, expressive eyes veiled, but she knew she had drawn blood. "You're not well, Rin. If you will not believe my assurances that you can trust the staff here, then at least think of the baby's needs and put those needs first" he breathed, not quite levelly.

A pained look of withdrawal crossed her exhausted face. She gave a jerky nod of assent, but turned her head to the wall. A minute later she felt a slight prick in her arm and she let herself float, and would have done anything to escape that relentless pounding inside her skull and forget that unjust look of cruel reproach she had seen in Sesshomaru 's gaze.

As she drifted like a drowning swimmer, all the worst moments of her life seemed to flash up before her.

Her earliest memory was of her father shouting at her mother and her mother crying. She had got up one morning at the age of seven to find her mother gone. Her father had flown into a rage when she'd innocently tried to question him. Soon after that she had been sent to stay with her godmother. Takeda Kagura had carefully explained. Her mother, kikyo, had done a very silly thing: she had gone away with another man. Her parents were getting a divorce, but some time, hopefully soon, when her father gave permission, her mother might come to visit her.

Only Kikyo never had. Rin had got her mothering from her godmother. And she had had to wait until she was twenty years old and clearing out her father's desk, days after his funeral, to discover the pitiful wad of pleading letters written by the distraught mother who had to all intents and purposes abandoned her. Kikyo had gone to New York and eventually married her lover. She had flown over to England half a dozen times, at an expense she could ill afford, in repeated attempts to see her daughter, but her embittered ex-husband had blocked her every time—not least by putting Rin into boarding school and refusing to say where she was. Rin had been shattered by what she'd uncovered, but also overjoyed to realize that her mother had really loved her, in spite of all her father's assertions to the contrary.

In New York, she had had a tearful, wonderful reunion with Kikyo, whose second husband had died the previous year. Her mother had been weak, breathless, and aged far beyond her years. The gravity of her heart condition had been painfully obvious. She had been living on welfare, what health insurance she had had exhausted. The harassed doctor at the local clinic had reluctantly told Rin under pressure that there was an operation performed by a world-famous surgeon which might give her mother some hope, but that it would take a lottery win to privately finance such major surgery.

Up, down—too much down in her life recently, and not enough up, she thought painfully as she wandered through her own memories.

And then she saw Sesshomaru, strolling through the glorious Vermont woods where she had walked every day, escaping from Soledad's kind but fussing attentions to cry in peace for the mother she had lost. Sesshomaru, garbed in faultlessly cut casual clothes, smart enough to take Rodeo Drive by storm and so smooth, so impressively natural in his surprise at stumbling on her that it was a wonder he hadn't cut himself with his own clever tongue.

And she had met those extraordinary eyes of amber and bang...crash...pow. She had been heading for a down that would take her all the way to hell, even though she had naively felt she was on an up the instant he angled that first smoldering smile at her.

Rin woke up the following morning wearing a hideous billowing hospital gown. She had a room to herself with a private bathroom. Her head no longer hurt, but tiredness still filled her with lethargy.

The nurse who came in response to the bell cheerfully ran through routine checks, efficiently helped her to freshen up and neatly side-stepped most of her anxious questions. She consulted her chart and informed Rin that she was to have complete bed rest. Mr. Bevan would be in around lunchtime, she confided, just as breakfast was delivered.

A couple of hours later Sesshomaru's chauffeur arrived, like an advance party before him. He settled down a suitcase that Rin recognized because it was her own. The case bulged with what struck her as very probably every possession she had last seen in her room at the Fukushima's**.** A maid in an overall came in and helped her change into one of her own nighties. Rin men retrieved a creased brown envelope from the jumble of items in the foot of her case. It was time to confront Sesshomaru with the worst of the deceptions practiced on her.

By the time mid-morning arrived, Rin was sitting bolt upright with wide, angrily impatient eyes and, had she but known it, the first healthy color in her cheeks for weeks. She raked restive fingers through the silky mahogany hair tumbling round her shoulders and focused on the door expectantly, like someone not only preparing to face Armageddon but overwhelmingly eager to meet it. The ajar door finally spread wide, framing Sesshomaru.

Her bream caught in her throat. Sleek and powerful, in a summer weight double-breasted beige business suit, he looked sensationally attractive, supremely poised and shockingly self-assured. Rin lost her animated color, ashamed of that helpless flare of physical response to those pale good looks and that lithe, lean, muscular physique. He was a ruthless and unashamed manipulator. Golden eyes raked over her, golden eyes without any shade of warm gold. Emotionless, businesslike, not even a comforting hint of uncertainty about his stance. "You look better already" he remarked levelly.

"I feel better" Rin was generous enough to admit "But I can't stay here—"

"Of course you can. Where else could you be so well cared for?"

"I've got something here I want you to explain" Rin delivered tautly. His attention dropped to the envelope clutched between her tense fingers. "What is it?"

A shaky little laugh escaped Rin. "Oh, it's not real proof of the manipulative lies I was fed...you needn't worry about that! Your lawyer was far too clever to allow me to retain any original documents, but I took photocopies—"

Sesshomaru frowned at her. "Dios mio, cut to the base line and tell me what you're talking about" he incised impatiently. "You were told no lies at any time!"

"Off the record lies" Rin extended tightly. "It was very clever to give me the impression that I was being allowed a reassuring glimpse at highly confidential information."

Sesshomaru angled back his imperious silver head. "Explain yourself"

Rin tossed the envelope to the foot of the bed. "How you can look me in the face and say that I will never know."

Sesshomaru swept up the envelope with an undaunted flourish. "And don't try to pretend you didn't know about it. When I was asked to sign that contract, I said I couldn't sign until I was given some assurances about the couple who wanted me to act as surrogate for them."

"The...couple!" Sesshomaru queried flatly, ebony brows drawing together as he extracted the folded pages from the envelope.

"Your lawyer said that wasn't possible. His clients wanted complete anonymity. So I left. Forty-eight hours later, I got a phone call. I met up in a cafe with a young bright spark from your lawyer's office. He said he was a clerk" Rin related jerkily, her resentment and distaste blatant in her strained face as she recalled how easily she had been fooled.

"He said he understood my concern about the people who would be adopting my child, and that he was risking his job in allowing me even a glance at such confidential documents—"

"Which confidential documents?" Sesshomaru cut in grittily.

"He handed me a profile of that supposed couple from an accredited adoption agency. There were no names, no details which might have identified them..." Tears stung Rin's eyes then, her voice beginning to shake with the strength of her feelings. "And I was really moved by what I read, by their personal statements, their complete honesty, their deep longing to have a family. They struck me as wonderful people, and they'd had an h-heartbreaking time struggling to have a child of their own..."

"Madre mia..." Sesshomaru ground out, half under his breath, scorching golden eyes pinned to her distraught face with mesmeric force.

"And you see" Rin framed jaggedly, "I really liked that couple. I felt for them, thought they would make terrific parents, would give any child a really loving home..." As a strangled sob swallowed her voice, she crammed a mortified hand against her wobbling mouth and stared in tormented accusation at Sesshomaru through swimming brown eyes. "How could you sink that low?" she condemned strikingly.

Sesshomaru gazed back at her, strikingly pale now below his already pale skin, so still he might have been a stone statue, a stunned light in his piercing golden eyes. With the greatest difficulty, Rin cleared her throat and breathed unevenly. "I asked the clerk to let me have an hour reading over that profile and I photocopied it without telling him. That afternoon, I went in and signed the contract. I thought I was doing a really good thing. I thought I would make that couple so happy... I was inexcusably dumb and shortsighted!"

The heavy silence stretched like a rubber band pulled too taut. And then Sesshomaru unfroze. In an almost violent gesture, he shook open the pages he still held. He strode over to the window, his broad back turned to her, his tension so pronounced it hummed like a force field in a room that now felt suffocating airless.

Rin sank wearily back against the pillows and fought to get a grip on the tears still clogging her aching throat.

Timeless minutes later, Sesshomaru swung back, his pale handsome features grim and forbidding. "This abhorrent deception was not instigated by me" he declared, visibly struggling to contain the outrage blazing in his eyes, the revealing rawness to that harshened plea in his own defence. "I had no knowledge of your request for further information or of your initial reluctance to sign that contract."

"How am I supposed to believe anything you say?"

"Because the guilty party will be called to account" Sesshomaru asserted with wrathful bite. "At no stage did I give any instruction which might have implied that I would countenance such a deception. There was no need for me to stoop to lies and manipulation. There were other far less scrupulous applicants available—"

"Were there?" Rin breathed, not best pleased to realize that she had featured as one of many. He was shocked and furious, so furious there was a slight tremor in his fingers as he refolded the pages she had given him. His sincerity was fiercely convincing.

"So now I know why you have no faith in my word. It wasn't only my decision to conceal my identity as the father of your child in Vermont that made you change your mind about fulfilling the contract."

It was an unfortunate reminder. He only had to mention that cruel masquerade to fill Rin with savage pain and resentment. She surveyed him with angry, bitter eyes. "I would never, ever have agreed to a single male parent for my child, and when I found out who you really were, I was genuinely appalled—"

Sesshomaru skimmed a startled glance at her. "Dios mio..."appalled"? What an exaggeration—"

"No exaggeration. I wouldn't give a man with your reputation a pet rabbit to keep, never mind an innocent, helpless baby!" Rin fired back at him. Sesshomaru gazed back at her with complete incredulity. "What is wrong with my reputation?"

"Read your own publicity" Rin advised with unconcealed distaste, thinking about the endless string of glamorous women who had been associated with him. There was nothing stable or respectable about Sesshomaru's lifestyle.

Outrage sizzled round Takahashi Sesshomaru like an intimidating aura. He snatched in a deep shuddering breath of restraint. "What right do you have to stand in judgment over me? So subterfuge was employed to persuade you into conceiving my child—I deeply regret that reality, but nothing will alter the situation we're in now. That child you carry is still my child!"

Rin turned her head away. "And mine."

"The Judgment of Solomon. Are you about to suggest that we divide him or her into two equal halves? Let me tell you now that I will fight to the end to prevent that obnoxious little nerd I met last night raising my child!" Sesshomaru delivered with sudden explosive aggression.

Rin blinked. "What little nerd?"

"Fukushima Jinenji informed me that you're engaged to him" Sesshomaru imparted with a feral flash of white teeth. "And you may believe that that is your business, but anything that affects my child's welfare is also very much my business now!"

Stunned to realize that Jinenji should have claimed to be engaged to her, Rin surveyed the volatile male striding up and down the room, like a prowling tiger lashing his tail at the confines of a cage. Why did she want to hold Sesshomaru in her arms and soothe him? She asked herself with a sinking heart

"I think you should leave, Sesshomaru." As that dry voice of reproof cut through the electric atmosphere, Rin tore her mesmerized attention from Sesshomaru. In turn, Sesshomaru swung round. They both focused in astonishment on the consultant lodged in the doorway. "Leave?" Sesshomaru stressed in unconcealed disbelief.

"Only quiet visitors are welcome here" Rodney Bevan spelt out gravely.

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Dressed in an Indian cotton dress the same rich brown as her eyes, Rin turned her face up into the sun and basked, welded to the comfy cushioning on the lounger. The courtyard garden at the centre of the clinic was an enchanting spot on a summer day. Even Jinenji's unwelcome visit couldn't detract from her pleasure at being surrounded by greenery again.

Jinenji gave her an accusing look. "Anybody would think you were enjoying yourself here!"

"It's very restful"

Until Rin had escaped Jinenji and his mother for three days, she hadn't appreciated just how wearing their constant badgering had become. She was tired of being pressurized and pushed in a direction she didn't want to go. Now that Sesshomaru had found her, she was no longer in hiding. After she had sorted out things with Sesshomaru, she would be able to take control of her own life again.

"Mother thinks you should come home" Jinenji told her with stiff disapproval.

"You still haven't explained why you told Sesshomaru we were engaged"

Jinenji frowned. "I should've thought that was obvious. I hoped he'd go away and leave us alone. What's the point of him showing up now? He's just complicating things, swanning up in his flash car and acting like he owns you!"

Strange how even a male as insensitive as Jinenji had recognised that Sesshomaru behaved as if he owned her. Only it wasn't her, it was the baby he believed he owned. Dear heaven, what a mess she was in, Rin conceded worriedly. There was no going back, no way of changing anything. Her baby was also Sesshomaru's baby and always would be.

"It was kind of you to call in, Jinenji" she murmured quietly. "Tell your mother that I really appreciate all her kindness, but that I won't be coming back to stay with you—"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Jinenji had gone all red in the face.

"I just don't want to marry you...I'm sorry"

"I'll visit later in the week, when you're feeling more yourself."

As Jinenji departed, Rin reflected that she was actually feeling more herself than she had in many weeks. Stepping off the treadmill of exhaustion had given her space to think. As she slowly, awkwardly raised herself, Sesshomaru appeared through a door on the far side of the courtyard. He angled a slashing, searching glance over the little clusters of patients taking the fresh air nearby. Screened by the shrubbery, Rin made no attempt to attract his attention.

His suit was palest grey. He exuded designer chic. In the sunlight, his luxuriant hair gleamed silver- white. His lean, strong face possessed such breathtaking sexy symmetry that her breathing quickened and her sluggish pulses raced. Sesshomaru radiated raw sexuality in virile waves. The media said that men thought about sex at least once a minute. One look at Sesshomaru was enough to convince her. But a feeling of stark inadequacy and rejection now threatened her in Sesshomaru's radius. How the heck had she ever believed that a male that gorgeous was interested in her? How willfully blind she had been in Vermont! If a woman excited Sesshomaru, he probably pounced on the first date, or maybe he got pounced on, but he had never made a pass at her, or even tried to kiss her: at first he had made her as nervous as a cat on hot bricks. But before very long his exquisite manners and flattering interest in her had soothed her inexperienced squirming in his presence and given her entirely the wrong impression. Incredibly, she had believed that one of the world's most notorious womanizers was actually a cautious and decent guy, mature enough to want to get to know a woman as a friend before trying to take the relationship any further. Remembering that fact now made Rin feel positively queasy. She had thought Sesshomaru was perfect; she had thought he was wonderful; she had thought he was really attracted to her because he continued to seek out her company...

Far from impervious to Sesshomaru's cool exasperation when he finally espied her, lurking behind the shrubbery, Rin dropped her head, her shining fall of mahogany hair concealing her taut profile. "What are you doing out of bed?" Sesshomaru demanded the instant he got within hailing distance. "I'll take you back up to your room."

"I'm allowed out for fresh air as long as I don't overdo it" Rin said thinly.

"We'll go inside" Sesshomaru decreed. "We can't discuss confidential business here" Rin swung her legs off the lounger and got up.

"Business? I've learnt the hard way that my baby is not a piece of merchandise."

"Do you really think I feel any different?" Sesshomaru breathed with a raw, bitter edge to his rich, dark drawl. "Do you really think you're the only one of us to have learnt from this mess?"

She couldn't avoid looking at him in the lift. He stood opposite her, supremely indifferent to the two nurses in the corner studying him with keen female appreciation. He stared at Rin without apology, intense golden eyes welded broodingly to her heart-shaped face and the heated color steadily building in her cheeks.

She had one question she desperately wanted to ask him. Why did a drop-dead gorgeous heterosexual male of only thirty-one feel the need to hire a surrogate mother to have his child? Why hadn't he just got married? Or, alternatively, why hadn't he simply persuaded one of his innumerable blonde bimbo babes into motherhood? Why surrogacy?

The minute Rin settled herself down on the sofa in her room; Sesshomaru breathed with a twist of his expressive mouth, "You're still angry with me about Vermont. We should deal with that and get it out of the way...it's clouding the real issues at stake here."

At that statement of intent, Rin stiffened, and her skin prickled with shrinking apprehension. "Naturally I'm still angry, but I see no point in talking about it. That's in the past now."

Sesshomaru strolled over to the window. He dug a lean pale hand into the pocket of his well-cut trousers tightening the fit of the fine fabric over his narrow hips and long, muscular thighs. Rin found herself abstractedly studying a part of the male anatomy she had never in her life before studied, the distinctively manly bulge of his manhood. Flushing to the roots of her hair, she hurriedly looked away.

But it was so peculiar, she thought bitterly. So peculiar to be pregnant by a man she had never slept with, never been intimate with in any way. And Takahashi Sesshomaru was all male, like a walking advertisement for high testosterone levels and virility. Why on earth had he chosen to have his child conceived by an anonymous insemination in a doctor's surgery?

"If I'm really honest, I wanted to meet you and talk to you right from the moment you signed the contract" Sesshomaru drawled tautly, interrupting her seething thoughts.

"Why, for heaven's sake?"

"I knew my child would want to know what you were really like."

A cold chill of repulsion trickled down Rin's spine. So impersonal, so practical, so utterly unfeeling a motivation. "After your mother died, I was aware that you were in considerable distress" Sesshomaru continued levelly. "You needed support...who else was there to provide that support? If you hadn't discovered that I was the baby's father, you wouldn't have been so upset. And isn't it time you told me how you did penetrate that secret?"

In her mind's eye, Rin pictured Soledad and all the numerous members of her equally dependent family being flung off the ancestral ranch the older woman had described in Venezuela. She gulped. "You gave yourself away. Your behavior...well, it made me suspicious. I worked the truth out for myself" she bed stiltedly.

"You're a liar...Soledad told you" Sesshomaru traded without skipping a beat, shrewd ambar eyes grimly amused by her startled reaction. "A major oversight on my part. Two women stuck all those weeks in the same house? The barriers came down and you became friendly—"

"Soledad would never have betrayed you if you hadn't come into my life without admitting who you were!" Rin interrupted defensively. "She couldn't cope with being forced to pretend that she didn't know you."

"I was at fault there" Sesshomaru acknowledged openly, honestly, taking her by surprise. "I'm aware of that now. Vermont was a mistake...it personalized what should have remained impersonal and compromised my sense of honor."

A mistake? A gracious admission of fault, an apology underwritten. Gulping back a spurt of angry revealing words, Rin swallowed hard. He was so smooth, so reasonable and controlled. She wanted to scratch her nails down the starkly handsome planes of those high cheekbones to make him feel for even one second something of what she had suffered!

"So, now that you know how I found out, are Soledad and her family still working for you?" Rin enquired stiffly. Sesshomaru dealt her a wry smile. "Her family is, but Soledad has moved to Caracas to look after her grandchildren while her daughter's at work."

A light knock at the door announced the entry of a maid, bearing Rin's afternoon tea. Sesshomaru asked for black coffee, it not occurring to him for one moment that as a visitor he might not be entitled to refreshment. Blushing furiously, the maid literally rushed to satisfy his request

Cradling the coffee elegantly in one lean hand, Sesshomaru sank down lithely into the armchair opposite her. "Are you comfortable here?"

"Very"

"But obviously it's a challenge to fill the empty hours. I'll get a video recorder sent in, some tapes, books...I know what you like" Sesshomaru asserted with complete confidence. "I should've thought of it before."

"I'm not happy with what this place must be costing you" Rin told him in a sudden rush. "Especially as I am not going to honor that contract."

Sesshomaru scanned her anxious blue eyes. A slight smile momentarily curved his wide, sensual mouth. "You need some time and space to consider that decision. Right now, I have no intention of putting pressure on you—"

"Just having you in the same room is pressure" Rin countered uncomfortably. "Having you pay my bills makes it even worse."

"Whatever happens, I'm still the father of your baby. That makes you my responsibility."

"The softly, softly, catchee monkey routine won't work with me... I'm so fed up with people telling me that I don't know what I want, or that I don't know what I'm doing."

Rin raised her small head high and valiantly clashed with brilliant black eyes as sharp as paint. "The truth is that I've grown up a lot in the last few months..." Sesshomaru held up a fluid and silencing hand in a gesture that came so naturally to him that she instinctively closed her lips.

"In swift succession over the past year or so you have lost the three people you cared about most in this world. Your father, your mother and your godmother. That is bound to be affecting your judgment and your view of the future. All I want to do is give you another possible view."

Setting aside his empty coffee cup, he rose gracefully upright again. Rin watched him nervously, the tip of her tongue stealing out to moisten the dry curve of her lower lip. Sesshomaru's attention dropped to the soft, generous pink curve of her mouth and lingered, and she felt the oddest buzzing current in the air, her slight frame automatically tensing in reaction. Sesshomaru stiffened, the dark rise of blood emphasizing the slashing line of his hard cheekbones. Swinging on his heel, he strode over to the window and pushed it wider.

"It's stuffy in here... As I was saying, an alternative view of the future" he continued flatly. "You can't possibly want to marry that little jerk Fukushima Jinenji—"

Taken aback, Rin sat up straighter. "How do you know?"

His chiseled profile clenched into aggressive lines. "He's just being greedy...he wouldn't look twice at a woman expecting another man's child unless she was an heiress!"

Rin flinched at that revealing assertion. "So you found out about my godmother's will..."

"Naturally..." Sesshomaru skimmed an assured glance in her direction. "And the good news is that you don't have to marry Jinenji to inherit that money and make a new start. You're only twenty-one; you have your whole life in front of you. Why clog it up with Jinenji? He's a pompous bore. I'm prepared to give you that million pounds to dump him!"

In sheer shock, Rin's lips fell open. She began to rise off the sofa. "I b-beg your pardon?" she stammered shakily, convinced he couldn't possibly have said what she thought he had said.

Sesshomaru swung fluidly round to face her again. "You heard me. Forget that stupid will, and for the present forget the baby too...just ditch that loser!"

Her brown eyes opened very wide. She gaped at him, and then she took a step forward, fierce anger leaping up inside her. "How dare you try to bribe me into doing what you want me to do? How dare you do that?"

Sesshomaru's cool facade cracked to reveal the cold anger beneath. He sent her a sizzling look of derision. "Caramba! Surely you'd prefer to stay rich and single when Jinenji's the only option on offer?"

Without an instant of hesitation, Rin snatched up the water jug by the bed with a feverish hand and slung the contents at him. "That's what I think of your filthy offer! I'm not for sale this time and I never will be again!"

Soaked by that sizeable flood, and astonished by her attack and that outburst, Sesshomaru stood there dripping and downright incredulous. As his lean fingers raked his wet hair off his brow, his ambar eyes flamed to a savage golden blaze.

"I'm not sorry" Rin admitted starkly.

Sesshomaru slung her a searing look of scantily leashed fury. "Por Dios...I am leaving before I say or do something I might regret!" he bit out rawly.

The door snapped shut in his imperious wake. Rin snatched in a slow steadying breath and realized that even her hands were shaking. She had never met with a temper that hot before.

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**N/A: ** Hello everybody! Merry X-mas!

Here you have a little present, a new chapter! I was really busy with work and stuff, but I decided to take a few minutes and update. I hope u like it!

I was asked how Sessh found Rin so fast... well, he is really rich, and has private investigators and all… and I mean, c'mon... its sessh… Jeje

See ya soon! Take care! And if I cant update within this week… Happy new year! :D

XOXO

Sahora.


	25. Contract baby 3

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

N/A: Hello Everybody! Sorry for the long wait for an update, and that there is just one chapter this time… It's been a hell of a couple of months at work, and is not over yet…

But I haven't forgotten about you guys! So here it is a new chapter… enjoy!

XOXO

Sahora

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Chapter three

A video recorder arrived, complete with a whole collection of tapes, and was installed in Rin's room by lunchtime the following day.

As a gesture, it was calculated to make her feel guilty. That evening, Rin sat in floods of tears just picking through titles like The Quiet Man and Pretty Woman and Sabrina. All escapist romantic movies, picked by a male who knew her tastes far too well for comfort. She grabbed up another tissue in despair.

Takahashi Sesshomaru unleashed a temper she hadn't known she had. He filled her to overflowing with violent, resentful and distressingly confused emotions. She hated him, she told herself fiercely. He was tearing her apart. She hated him even more when she felt herself react to the humiliating pull of his magnetic sexual attraction. Worse, Sesshomaru understood her so much better than she understood him. In Vermont, she had trustingly revealed too many private thoughts and feelings, while he had been coolly evaluating her, like a scientist studying something curious under a microscope. Why? He had answered that straight off the top of his head and without hesitation.

So that he could answer her child's questions about her in the future.

Rin shivered at the memory of that admission, chilled to the marrow and hurt beyond belief. It wasn't possible to get more detached than that from another human being. But how many times had Sesshomaru already emphasized that there was nothing but that hateful surrogate contract between them? And why was she still torturing herself with that reality? He had coolly, contemptuously offered her a million pounds to dump Jinenji and stay single. And why had he done that? Simply because he felt threatened by the idea of her marrying. Why hadn't she grasped that fact sooner? If she married, Sesshomaru would be forced, whether he liked it or not, to stand back while another man raised his child. So why hadn't she told him she wasn't planning to marry Jinenji?

Rin was honest with herself on that point. She hadn't seen why she should tell him the truth. What business was it of his? And she had been prepared to hide behind a pretend engagement to Jinenji, a face-saving pretence that suggested her life had moved on since Vermont. Only Sesshomaru had destroyed that pretence. Acquainted as he was with the intricacies of her godmother's will, he had realized that that inheritance was the only reason Jinenji was willing to marry her. It mortified Rin that Sesshomaru should have guessed even that. In his presence, she was beginning to feel as if she was being speedily stripped of every defense.

But then what did she know about men? It was laughable to be so close to the birth of her own child and still be so ignorant But her father had been a strict, puritanical man, whose rules and restrictions had made it impossible for her to enjoy a normal social life. It had even been difficult to hang onto female friends with a father who invariably offended them by criticizing their clothing or their behavior.

She had had a crush on a boy in her teens, but he had quickly lost interest when her father refused to allow her to go out with him. When she had started the university degree course that she'd never got to finish, she had lived so close to the campus she had had to continue living at home. She had kept house for her father, assisted in his many church activities and, when his stationery business began to fail, helped with his office work.

She had sneaked out to the occasional party. Driven with guilt at having lied to get out, she had endured a few over-enthusiastic clinches, wondering what all the fuss was about while she pushed away groping, over-familiar hands, unable to comprehend why any sane female would want to respond to such crude demands.

She had met another boy while studying. Like his predecessors, he had been unwilling to come to the house and meet her father just to get permission to take her out at night. At first he had thought it was a bit of laugh to see her only during the day. Then one lunch time he had taken her back to his flat and tried to get her to go to bed with him. She had said no. He had ditched her there and then, called her 'a pathetic, boring little virgin' and soon replaced her with a more available girl who didn't expect love and commitment in return for sex. It had taken Sesshomaru to teach Rin what she had never felt before...a deep, dark craving for physical contact as tormenting to endure as a desperate thirst...

Rin was restless that evening. Aware that she wasn't asleep, one of the nurses brought her in a cup of tea at ten, and thoughtfully lent her a magazine to read.

As always, during the night, her door was kept ajar to allow the staff to check easily and quietly on her. So when, out of the corner of her eye, Rin saw the door open wider, she turned with a smile for the nurse she was expecting to see and then froze in surprise when she saw Sesshomaru instead. Visiting time finished at nine, and it was now after eleven.

"How did you get in?" Rin asked in a startled whisper.

Sesshomaru leant lithely back against the door until it snapped softly shut. In a black dinner jacket and narrow black trousers, a bow tie at his throat, he exuded sophisticated cool.

"Talked my way past the security guard and chatted up the night sister." Strolling forward, he set a tub of ice cream in front of her. "Peppermint—your favourite...my peace offering" he murmured with a lazy smile. That charismatic smile hit Rin like a shot of adrenalin in her veins. Every trace of drowsiness evaporated. Her heart jumped, her mouth ran dry and burning color started to creep up her throat. He lifted the teaspoon from the cup and saucer on the bed-table she had pushed away and settled it down helpfully on top of the tub.

"Eat it before it melts" he advised, settling down on the end of the bed in an indolent sprawl.

It shook her that Sesshomaru should recall that peppermint was her favorite flavor. It shook her even more that he should take the trouble to call in with ice cream at this hour of the night when he had obviously been out somewhere.

With a not quite steady hand, Rin removed the lid on the tub. "Jinenji lied" she confided abruptly. "We're not engaged. I'm not going to marry him."

In the intimate pool of light shed by the Angle poise lamp by the bed, a wolfish grin slashed Sesshomaru's darkly handsome features. Rin was so mesmerized by it, she dug her teaspoon into empty air instead of the tub and only discovered the ice cream by touch.

"You could do a lot better than him, cielita" he responded softly. Rin's natural sense of fairness prompted her to add, "Jinenji isn't that bad. He was honest. It wasn't like he pretended to fancy me or anything like that..."

Slumberous ambar eyes semi-screened by lush ebony lashes, Sesshomaru emitted a low-pitched laugh that sent an odd little tremor down her sensitive spine. "Jinenji has no taste."

The silence that fell seemed to hum in her eardrums.

Feeling that languorous heaviness in her breasts, the surge of physical awareness she dreaded, Rin shifted uneasily and leapt straight back into speech. "Why did you decide to hire a surrogate?" she asked baldly. "It doesn't make sense to me."

His strong face tensed. "I wanted to have a child while I was still young enough to play with a child..."

"And the right woman just didn't come along?" Rin assumed as the silence stretched.

"Perhaps I should say that I like women but I like my freedom better. Let's leave it at that" Sesshomaru suggested smoothly.

"I'm so sorry I signed that contract" Troubled brown eyes rested on him, her heart-shaped face strained. "I don't know how I thought I could actually go through with it...but at the time I suppose I couldn't think of anything but how sick my mother was."

"I should never have picked you. The psychologist said that he wasn't convinced you understood how hard it would be to surrender your child—"

"Did he?"

"He said you were too intense, too idealistic."

Rin frowned. "So why was I chosen?"

Sesshomaru lifted a broad shoulder in a slight fatalistic shrug that was very Latin. "I liked you. I didn't want to have a baby with a woman I couldn't even like."

"I was a really bad choice" Rin muttered ruefully. "Now I wish you'd listened to the psychologist."

Sesshomaru vented a rather grim laugh. "I never listen to what I don't want to hear. People who work for me know that, and they like to please me. That's why you were fed lies to persuade you into signing the contract. A very junior lawyer got smart and set you up. He didn't tell his boss what he'd done until after you'd signed. He expected an accolade for his ingenuity but instead he got fired."

"Did he?" Rin showed her surprise.

"Si..." Sesshomaru's mouth tightened. "But my lawyer saw no reason to tell me what had happened. He had no idea that either of us would ever be in a position to find out."

Rin ate the ice cream, lashes lowering as she savored each cool, delicious spoonful. The seconds ticked by. Sesshomaru watched her. She was aware of his intent scrutiny, curiously satisfied by the attention, but extremely nervous of it too, as if she was a mouse with a hawk circling overhead. It was so quiet, so very quiet at that hour of the night, no distant buzzing bells, and no quick-moving feet in the corridor outside. And then Rin stiffened, a muffled little sound of discomfort escaping her as the baby chose that moment to give her an athletic kick.

Sesshomaru leant forward. "Que... what is it?" he demanded anxiously.

"The baby. It's always liveliest at night." She met the question in his eyes and flushed, reaching a sudden decision. Setting down the ice cream, she pushed the bedding back the few necessary inches, knowing that she was perfectly decently covered in her cotton nightie but still feeling horrendously shy.

Sesshomaru drew closer and rested his palm very lightly on her stomach. As he felt the movement beneath his fingers, a look of wonder filled his dark, shimmering gaze and he smiled with sudden quick brilliance. "That's amazing" he breathed. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"Mr Bevan offered to tell me but I didn't want to know" Rin admitted unevenly, deeply unsettled by that instant of intimate sharing but undeniably touched by his fascination. "I like surprises better"

Sesshomaru slowly removed his palm and tugged the sheet back into place. His hands weren't quite steady. Noting that, she wondered why. She could still feel the cool touch of his hand like a burning imprint on her own flesh. He was so close she could hardly breathe, her own awareness of him so pronounced it was impossible to fight. At best, she knew she could only hope to conceal her reaction, but though she was desperate to think of something to say to distract him her mind was suddenly a blank.

"You can be incredibly sweet..." Sesshomaru remarked, half under his breath.

Her intent gaze roamed over him, lingering helplessly on the glossy luxuriance of his silver hair, the hard, clean line of his high cheekbones and the dark roughening of his jaw-line that suggested a need to shave twice a day. Reaching the wide, passionate curve of his mouth, she wondered as she had wondered so often before what he tasted like.

Then, wildly flustered by that disturbing thought, her eyes lifted, full of confusion, and the dark golden lure of his gaze entrapped and held her in thrall.

"And incredibly tempting" Sesshomaru confided huskily as he brought his sensual mouth very slowly down on hers. She could have pulled back with ease; he gave her every opportunity. But at the first touch of his lips on hers she dissolved into a hot, melting pool of acquiescence. With a muffled groan, he closed his hand into the tumbling fall of her hair to steady himself and let his tongue stab deep into the tender interior of her mouth. And the whole tenor of the kiss changed.

Excitement so intense it burned flamed instantly through her, bringing her alive with a sudden shocking vitality that made her screamingly aware of every inch of her own humming body. And as soon as it began she ached for more, lacing desperate fingers into the silky thickness of his hair, palms sliding down then to curve over to his cheekbones. Only at some dim, distant, uncaring level was she conscious of the buzzing, irritating sound somewhere close by.

Sesshomaru released her with a stifled expletive in Spanish and sprang off the bed. With dazed eyes, Rin watched him pull out a mobile phone. And in the deep silence she heard the high-pitched vibration of a woman's voice before he put the phone to his ear. "Dios...I'll be down in a moment" Sesshomaru murmured curtly, and, switching the phone off, he dug it back into his pocket.

"I'm sorry but I have to go. I have someone waiting in the car" He raked restive fingers through his now thoroughly tousled silver hair, glittering golden eyes screened from her searching scrutiny, mouth compressed into a ferocious line. "I'll see you soon. Buenas noches."

The instant he left the room, Rin thrust back the bedding and scrambled awkwardly out of bed. She flew over to the window which overlooked the front entrance and pulled back the curtain. She saw the limo...and she saw the beautiful blonde in her sleek, short crimson dress pacing beside it Then she watched the blonde arrange herself in a studied pose against the side of the luxury car so that she looked like a glamorous model at an automobile show.

Rin rushed back across the room to douse the lamp and then returned to the window. Sesshomaru emerged from the clinic. The blonde threw herself exuberantly into his arms. Rin's nerveless fingers dropped from the curtain. She reeled back against the cold wall and closed her arms round her trembling body, feeling sick and dizzy and utterly disgusted with herself.

Oh, dear heaven, why hadn't she slapped his face for him? Why, oh, why had she allowed him to kiss her? Feeling horribly humiliated and raw, she got back into bed with none of the adrenalin-charged speed with which she had vacated it. Tonight Sesshomaru had been out with his latest blonde. Now they were either moving on to some nightclub or heading for a far more intimate setting. She could barely credit that Sesshomaru had called in to see her in the middle of a date with another woman, as relaxed and unhurried as if he'd had all the time in the world to spend with her.

Rin felt murderous. She could still see the ice cream tub glimmering in the darkness. Gosh, weren't you a pushover? A sarcastic little inner voice gibed. Easily impressed, pitifully vulnerable. Her defenses hadn't stood a chance with Sesshomaru in a more approachable mood. And he hadn't even kissed her because he was attracted to her—oh, no. Nothing so simple and nothing less flattering than the true explanation she suspected.

He had felt the baby move. That had been a disturbingly intimate and emotional experience for them both. For the first time they had crossed the barriers of that contract and actually shared something that related to the baby. And Sesshomaru was a very physical male who had, in the heat of the moment, reacted in an inappropriately physical way. The constraint of his abrupt departure had revealed his unease with that development. She was convinced he wouldn't ever let anything like that happen between them again. Yet for so long Rin had ached for Sesshomaru to kiss her, and that passionate kiss had outmatched her every naive expectation. Without ever touching her, Sesshomaru had taught her to crave him like a dangerous drug. Now she despised herself and felt all the shame of her own wantonly eager response. She did hate him now, she told herself vehemently.

Technically she might still be a virgin, but she wasn't such an idiot that she didn't know that sexual feelings could both tempt and confuse. Her response had had nothing to do with love or intelligence.

She had stopped loving Sesshomaru the same day that she'd discovered how he had been deceiving her in Vermont. But the complexity of their current relationship was plunging her into increasing turmoil. For what relationship did they have? She wasn't his lover but she was expecting his baby, and she couldn't even claim that they were friends, could she...?

A magnificent floral arrangement arrived from Sesshomaru the next day. Rin asked the maid to pass it on to one of the other patients. She didn't want to be reminded of Sesshomaru every time she looked across the room.

He phoned in the afternoon. "How are you?"

"Turning somersaults" Rin said brittly. "Leafing through my frantically crammed social diary to see what I'll be doing today. Do I really need to stay here much longer?"

"Rod thinks so" Sesshomaru reminded her. "Look, I'll be away on business for the next week. I wanted to leave a contact number with you so that you can get in touch if you need to"

"I can't imagine there being any need when I'm surrounded by medical staff and being waited on hand and foot."

"OK. I'll phone you—"

Rin breathed in deep. "Would you mind if I asked you not to?"

"I don't like having this type of conversation on the phone. It's a very female method of warfare" Sesshomaru drawled grimly.

"I was just asking for a little space" Rin countered tightly. "In the circumstances, I don't think that's unreasonable. You may be the father of my child, but we don't have a personal relationship."

"I'll see you when I get back from Paris, Rin."

The line went dead. But Rin continued to grip the receiver frantically tight. She didn't want to see him; she didn't want to hear from him. Her eyes smarted. But the tears were nothing to do with him. Late on in pregnancy women were often more emotional and tearful, she reminded herself staunchly.

Mid-morning, late in the following week, Rin had just put on a loose red jersey dress with a V-neckline and short sleeves when Sesshomaru arrived to visit her. Hearing the knock on the door of her room, she emerged from the bathroom, still struggling to brush her long hair. She fell still in an awkward pose when she realized who it was.

Her heart skipped a complete beat. Sesshomaru was wearing a navy pinstriped business suit so sharply tailored it fitted his magnificent physique like a glove. Worn with a dark blue shirt and red silk tie, it made him look sensationally attractive and dynamic. Her throat closed over. It felt like a hundred years since she had last seen him. She wanted to move closer, had to forcefully still her feet where she stood.

Sesshomaru strolled forward and casually reached up to pluck the brush from her loosened hold. Gently turning her round by her shoulders, he teased loose the tangle she had been fighting with before returning the brush to her hand. "I owe you an apology for my behavior on my last visit" he murmured with conviction.

Rin tensed. There was a mirror on the back of the bath-room door. She could see his reflection, the cool gravity of his expression, the dark brilliance of his assessing gaze. Color stained Rin 's cheeks but she managed to laugh. "For goodness' sake" she said with determined lightness, "there's no need for an apology. It was just a kiss...no big deal!"

Something bright flared in his ambar eyes and then they were veiled, his sensual mouth curling slightly. "Bueno. I wondered if you would like to have lunch out today."

In surprise, Rin swiveled round, all constraint put to flight by that unexpected but very welcome suggestion that she might return to the outside world for a few hours. "I'd love to!"

In the foyer they ran into Fukushima Sakura.

"Oh, dear, were you coming to visit me?" Rin muttered with dismay made all the more pungent by a guilty sense of relief. "I'm so sorry. I'm afraid we're going out for lunch."

"That does surprise me." Sakura raised an enquiring brow. "I understood you were here to rest"

"I'm under the strictest instructions to see that she doesn't overtire herself, Mrs Fukushima" Sesshomaru interposed with a coolly pleasant smile. "I'm also grateful to have the opportunity to thank you for all the support you have given Rin in recent weeks."

The middle-aged blonde gave him a thin smile and turned to Rin. "Jinenji said that you weren't coming back to stay with us." She then shot Sesshomaru an arch look that didn't conceal her hostility. "Do I hear wedding bells in the air?"

Rin paled, and then hot, mortified color flooded her cheeks. The silence simmered. Sesshomaru stepped calmly into the breach. "I'm sure Rin will keep you in touch with events, Mrs Fukushima."

"A tough cookie" Sesshomaru remarked of the older woman as he settled Rin into the limousine a few minutes later. "I'm relieved that you didn't choose to confide in her about our legal agreement. But why the hell did you look so uncomfortable?" Rin thought of those crazy weeks in Vermont, when she had foolishly allowed herself to be wildly, recklessly in love with Sesshomaru. Her imagination had known no limits when every moment she could she'd tried to forget the fact that she was pregnant. Those stupid girlish daydreams about marrying Sesshomaru were now a severe embarrassment to recall. She had to think fast to come up with another explanation for her discomfiture.

"Sakura was kind to me...but she'd never have offered me a room if she hadn't known about my inheritance. She couldn't understand why I wasn't prepared to marry Jinenji for the sake of that money. She thought I was being very foolish and shortsighted."

"You don't need to make a choice like that now. In any case, gatita...you're far too young to be thinking about marriage."

An awkward little silence fell. Rin was very tense. She was already scolding herself for having reacted to Sesshomaru's invitation as if his only aim was to give her a pleasant outing. Sesshomaru did nothing without good reason. Over lunch, Sesshomaru was undoubtedly planning to open a serious discussion about their baby's future. The subject could not be avoided any longer, and this time she would try to be as calm and rational as possible. "Waiting to hear what you're going to say makes me very nervous" she nonetheless heard herself confide abruptly. "I may be pregnant, but I'm not likely to pop off at the first piece of bad news. Do you think you could just tell me right now up front whether or not you're planning to take me to court after the baby's born?"

Sesshomaru sent her a shimmering glance, his mouth curling. "Much good it would do me if I did have such plans. Although it seems very wrong to me, in this country I have no legal rights as the father of your child."

"Honestly?" Rin surveyed him through very wide and surprised blue eyes. "But what about the contract?"

"Forget the contract. It might as well not exist now. Do you seriously think that I would even want to take such a personal and private matter into a courtroom?"

"I never thought of that" Rin admitted, suddenly feeling quite weak with the strength of her relief. "I just had nightmares about being extradited to the USA."

An involuntary smile briefly curved Sesshomaru's lips. "Force wouldn't work in a situation like this."

Did he think that persuasion would? Rin worried about that idea. She knew that her own convictions ran so deep and strong he had no hope of changing her mind; she was determined to keep her baby. But she was burdened by the increasingly guilty awareness that that wasn't very fair to Sesshomaru, and that some way, somehow, they had to find a compromise that would be bearable for them both.

Yet where could they possibly find that compromise? Sesshomaru had chosen surrogacy because he wanted a child, but not a child he had to share in a conventional relationship. Sesshomaru had opted for a detached, businesslike arrangement without strings. But no matter what happened now he had no hope of acquiring sole custody of his own child. How could she not feel guilty about that?

Sesshomaru took her back to a luxury apartment in Mayfair. Rin felt intimidated by the grandeur of her surroundings. A light and exquisitely cooked lunch was served by a quiet and unobtrusive manservant. Throughout the meal, Sesshomaru chatted about his business trip to Paris. He was very entertaining, a sophisticated and amusing raconteur. But, while she laughed and smiled in response, all she could really think about was how easily he had fooled her with that charismatic polish in Vermont.

It meant nothing. It just meant he had terrific social skills. She had learned to read Sesshomaru well enough to recognize that essential detachment just beneath the surface, not to mention his smooth ability to avoid giving personal information. All those visits in Vermont and what had she picked up about him? That he had no close family alive, that he was a businessman who traveled a lot, and that he had been born in Venezuela. Precious little.

Sesshomaru ran hooded golden eyes over her abstracted face. "I feel like you're not with me."

"Perhaps I'm tired" she said uncomfortably. Instantly Sesshomaru thrust back his chair and rose lithely upright. "Then you should lie down in one of the guest rooms for a while."

"No...We need to talk" Rin acknowledged tautly. "I want to get that over with."

Leaving the table, she settled down into a comfortable armchair. The coffee was served.

Sesshomaru paced restively over to the window and then gazed across the room at her. "Don't look so anxious...it makes me feel like a bully" he admitted grimly. Rin clutched her cup. "You're not that" she acknowledged fairly. "You've been very patient and more understanding than I could ever have expected."

Sesshomaru spread lean pale hands with an eloquence that never failed to engage her attention.

"I have a possible solution to this situation. Please hear me out" he urged. Tense as a bowstring, Rin sat very still. "The biggest difference between us is that I planned to be a parent from the very outset of our association" Sesshomaru delineated with measured clarity. "But you did not. When you became pregnant you did not expect to take on permanent responsibility for that child." Rin nodded in wary, reluctant agreement. "I think you're too young to handle becoming a single parent. I understand that you have become attached to the baby, and that you are naturally very concerned about its future wellbeing. But if you choose to keep the baby you will have to sacrifice the freedom that most young women of your age take for granted." Rin gave him a stubborn look.

"I know that. I'm not stupid. And I'm hardly likely to miss what I've never had—"

"But you could have that freedom now. You should be making plans to return to university to complete your degree" Sesshomaru told her steadily. "If you let me take my child back to Venezuela, I will allow you access visits, regular reports, photographs. I will agree to any reasonable request. My child will know you as his mother but you will not be the primary carer."

Sesshomaru had taken her very much by surprise. Rin hadn't expected such willingness to compromise from a male to whom she sensed 'compromise' was an unfamiliar word. On his terms, she guessed it was a very generous offer. He was offering to share their child to some extent, and that was a lot more than she had anticipated.

"I believe every child deserves two parents" she responded awkwardly. "Two parents on the spot."

"That's impossible."

"I was brought up by my father, and there wasn't a day I didn't long for my mother."

"This child may be a boy."

"I don't think that makes any difference. Because of my own experiences, I couldn't face being parted from my child. Whatever it takes, I need to be there for my baby and do the very best I can to be a good mother" Rin was very tense as she struggled to verbalize her own deepest feelings. "And, yes, it is a very great pity that I didn't work that out before I signed that contract...but my only excuse is that I honestly didn't even begin to understand how I would feel once I was actually pregnant"

"That's in the past now. We need to concentrate on the present." With that rather deflating assurance, Sesshomaru flung back his silver handsome head, his ambar eyes formidable in their penetration. "If you really mean what you say when you protest that you intend to be the very best mother you can be...then you must move to Venezuela."

"Venezuela?" Rin exclaimed, wildly disconcerted at having that stunning suggestion flung at her in cool challenge.

"I will set you up in a house there. You will have every comfort and convenience, and your child as well."

Rin blinked, still attempting to absorb a staggering proposition that entailed moving to the other side of the world. "I couldn't—"

'Por Dios... ask yourself if you are being fair. If the child needs his mother, then he also needs his father. And that child will inherit everything I possess." Sesshomaru spelt out that reminder with imperious pride and impatience.

"Money isn't everything, Sesshomaru —"

"Don't be facile. I'm talking about a way of life that you have not the slightest conception of" Sesshomaru returned very dryly, watching her flush. "At least be practical, Rin. My child needs to know that Venezuelan heritage, the language, the people, and the culture. If you won't come to Venezuela, what am I to do? With the claims on my time, I can't possibly visit the UK often enough to form a close relationship with my child."

Rin tried to picture living in Venezuela, with Sesshomaru picking up all her bills, walking in and out of her life with one blonde babe girlfriend after another and eventually taking a wife. No matter how he might feel now, she was convinced that he would succumb to matrimony sooner or later. In such a situation she would always be an outsider, an interloper, neither family nor friend, and a lot of people would simply assume that she was his discarded mistress. She knew she would never be able to cope with such a dependent, humiliating existence on the fringe of Sesshomaru's world. She needed to get on with her own life. It was time to be honest about that reality.

"Sesshomaru...I want to stay in the UK with my baby. I don't want to live in Venezuela, having you oversee every move I make" Rin admitted, watching him bridle in apparent disbelief at that statement. "You have the right to be involved in your child's future...but what you seem to forget is that that future is my life as well! Anyway, you may not think it now, but some day you'll get married, have other children—"

Sesshomaru released his breath in a charged hiss of frustration. "I would sooner be dead than married!"

"But you see...I don't feel the same way" Rin shared with rueful honesty. "I would like to think that even as an unmarried mum I will get married eventually."

"Saying that to me is the equivalent of blackmail, Rin" Sesshomaru condemned, paler with anger, eyes hot as sunlight in that lean, dark, devastating face. "I do not want any other man involved in my child's upbringing!"

Temper stirred in Rin, and the more she thought about that blunt and unashamed declaration the angrier she became. Did Sesshomaru really believe that he had the right to demand that she live like a nun for the next twenty years? Lonely, unloved, celibate. She stared at him. Yes, that was what he believed and what he wanted, if he was not to have sole custody of their child.

Raising herself out of the armchair, Rin straightened her slight shoulders and stood up.

"You are so incredibly selfish and spoilt!" she accused fiercely.

Astonished by that sudden indictment, Sesshomaru strode across the room, closing the distance between them. "I can't believe that you can dare to say that to me—"

"I expect not...as you've already told me, you're accustomed to people who want to please you, who are eager to tell you only what you want to hear!" Rin shot back with unconcealed scorn. "Well, I'm not one of those people!"

His eyes blazed. "I have bent over backwards to be fair—"

"At what personal sacrifice and inconvenience?" Rin slung back, trembling with rage. "You are a playboy with a reputation as a womanizer. You enjoy your freedom, don't you?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Sesshomaru was unmoved by that angle of attack. "I don't lie to the women who pass through my life. I don't promise true love or permanency—"

"Because you've never had to, have you? You know, listening to you, Sesshomaru...I despise my own sex. But I despise you most of all" Rin confessed, with hands knotting into furious fists by her side. "It's one rule for you and another for me—a hypocritical sexist double standard that belongs in the Prehistoric ages with Neanderthals like you! You say you want this child, but you didn't want a child badly enough to make a commitment like other men, did you? And what do you offer me—?"

"The only two possible remedies to the mess we're now in. I'm not about to apologies because you do not like the imperfect sound of reality" Sesshomaru delivered with slashing bite.

"Reality? You call it "reality" to offer me a choice between giving up my child almost completely...and living like a nun in Venezuela?"

Sesshomaru flicked her a grimly amused glance. "You want the license to sleep around?"

"You know very well that's not what I'm trying to say!"

"But you wouldn't want me to share your bed without all that idealistic love, commitment and permanency jazz...would you, querida?" Sesshomaru breathed with sizzling golden eyes, watching her freeze in shock at that plunge into the more intimate and personal. "You see, what you want and what I want we can't have, because we both want something different!"

Every scrap of color drained from Rin's face. "I don't want you...like that" she framed jerkily.

Sesshomaru cast her a glittering appraisal that was all male and all-knowing. "Oh, yes, you do...that sexual hunger has been there between us from the moment we met."

Rin backed away from him. She could not cope with having his knowledge of her attraction to him thrown in her teeth. "No—"

"I didn't take advantage of you because I knew it would end in your tears."

"Don't kid yourself...I might've ditched you first!" Rin told him with very real loathing, her pride so wounded she wanted to kill him. "And let me tell you something else too, I put a much higher price on myself than your interchangeable blonde babes do."

"I admire that...I really do" Sesshomaru incised with complete cool, his temper back under wraps again at disorientating, galling speed. "You have such rigid moral values, gatita. Well, warned in advance, I was careful to keep my distance in Vermont" Rin shuddered with a rage that was out of control, a rage that had its roots in pain and violent resentment. She was shattered by the sudden ripping down of the careful barriers that had made it possible for them to skim along the surface of their complex relationship.

Without those barriers, and shorn by Sesshomaru of all face-saving defenses, she was flailing wildly.

A look of positive loathing written in her furious eyes, she snapped, "Then you'll have no problem understanding that the only way you'll ever get me to Venezuela...the only way you'll ever achieve full custody of your child.. .is to marry me, Sesshomaru!"

A silence fell between them like a giant black hole, waiting to entrap the unwary.

Sesshomaru was now formidably still, brilliant gold eyes icy with incredulity. "That's not funny, Rin. Take it back."

"Why? Do you want me to lie to you? Say I didn't mean it?" Rin demanded rawly as she tipped her head back, mahogany hair rippling back from her furiously flushed face. "I'm being honest with you. If I stay here in the UK, I will get on with my life and you will not interfere with that life! I am not prepared to go to Venezuela as anything other than a wife!"

Sesshomaru sent her a derisive look that said he was unimpressed. "You are not serious" Rin studied him with so much bitterness inside her she marveled she didn't explode like a destructive weapon.

"I am. Let's see how good you are at making sacrifices when you expect me to sacrifice everything! Why? Because I'm not rich and powerful like you? Or because I'm going to be the mother of your child and you have this weird idea that a decent mother has no entitlement to any life of her own?"

Sesshomaru jerked as if she had struck him, a feverish flush slowly darkening his pale cheekbones. This time the silence that fell screamed with menace. A tiny pulse flickered at the whitened edge of his fiercely compressed mouth. His hands had closed into fists, betraying his struggle for self-command. But, most frightening of all for Rin, for the very first time Sesshomaru stared back at her with very real hatred. Cold, hard, deadly loathing. And, in shock, Rin fell silent, mind turning blank, all the fight and anger draining from her, leaving only fear in their place.

"I'll take you back to the clinic" Sesshomaru drawled with raw finality. "There is no point in allowing this offensive dialogue to continue."


	26. Contract baby 4

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Four

Two days later, Rin was still recovering from the effects of that catastrophic lunch out.

But her mind was briefly removed from her own problems when she picked up a magazine dated from the previous month and learnt that her childhood friend, Higurashi Kagome, had got married, indeed had already been married for several weeks. Kagome and her husband, Taisho Inuyasha, had kept their marriage a secret until they were ready to make a public announcement. Rin read the article and scrutinized the photos with great interest, and a pleased smile on Kagome's behalf.

She had last met Kagome at the reading of Kagura's will. Her godmother had actually had three goddaughters, Rin and Kagome and Ayame. Although the girls had been close friends well into their teens, their adult lives had taken them in very different directions.

Kagome had become a famous model, with a tangled love life in London. Ayame had been a single parent, who rarely left her home in Cornwall. Rin had tried to keep in touch with both women but regular contact had gradually lapsed, not least because Ayame and Kagome were no longer friends.

"Isn't she gorgeous?" one of the nurses groaned in admiration, looking over her shoulder at the main picture of Kagome on the catwalk. "I would give my eye teeth to look like that!"

"Who wouldn't?" Rin's smile of amused agreement slid away as she found herself reflecting that Kagome closely resembled what appeared to be Sesshomaru's ideal of a sexually attractive woman. Tall, beautiful and stunning. And here she was, a five-foot-one-inch-tall, slightly built brunette, who had never looked glamorous in her life.

She grimaced, still angry and bitter about the options Sesshomaru had laid before her with a cruel air of understanding generosity. If she lived until she was ninety she would not forget her crushing sense of humiliation when Sesshomaru had dragged her attraction to him out into the open and squashed her already battered pride.

In Vermont, Sesshomaru had evidently seen her susceptibility and quite deliberately steered clear of encouraging her. That awareness now made her feel about a foot high. She had honestly believed that she hadn't betrayed herself, had fondly imagined that she had managed to match his cool and casual manner. She had deliberately avoided every temptation to do otherwise, biting her tongue many, many times in his presence.

She had always left it to him to say when or if he was coming again, had never once complained when he didn't show up, had never attempted to pry into his private life. And, boy, had she been wasting her time in trying to play it cool, she thought now in severe mortification. Sesshomaru had been ahead of her. 'Sexual hunger', he had called it! How gallant of him to pretend that he had been tempted too, because she didn't believe that—indeed, not for one second could she believe that!

And now she blamed Sesshomaru even more bitterly for her own painful misconceptions during that time. Why hadn't he mentioned the existence of other women in his life? Even the most casual reference to another relationship would have put her on her guard. But, no, Sesshomaru had been content to allow her to imagine whatever she liked. That had been safer than an honesty that might have made her question his true motive for seeking out her company.

So Sesshomaru needn't think that she was going to apologies for telling him that a wedding ring was the only thing likely to persuade her to move to Venezuela. It had been the honest truth. She hadn't expected him to like that truth, or even pause for a second to consider marriage as a possible option to their problem, but she had wanted to shock him just as he had shocked her, she conceded uncomfortably.

Yet the raw hostility and dislike she had aroused had not been a welcome result. In fact, his reaction had terrified her, and in retrospect even that annoyed her and filled her with shame. She had to learn to deal with Sesshomaru on an impersonal basis.

Sesshomaru arrived that evening while she was lying on the sofa watching the film Pretty Woman. He strode in at the bit where the heroine was fanning out a selection of condoms for the hero's benefit. Shooting the screen a darkling glance, he said with icy derision, "I've never understood how a whore could figure as a romantic lead!"

Rin almost fell on the coffee table in her eagerness to grab up the remote control and switch the television off. Hot-cheeked, she looked at him then. He had never seemed more remote: fabulous bone structure taut, lean features cool, his dark and formal business suit somehow increasing his aspect of chilling detachment.

Eyes as gold and wintry as a stormy sun assailed hers. "I've applied for a special license. We'll get married here in forty-eight hours."

In the act of lifting herself from the sofa, Rin's arms lost their strength and crumpled at the elbows. She toppled back onto the sofa again, a look of complete astonishment fixed to her startled face. "Say that again—"

"You have made it clear that you will not accept any other option" Sesshomaru drawled flatly.

"But I never expected... I mean, f-for goodness' sake, Sesshomaru" Rin stammered in severe shock. "We can't just—"

"Can't we? Are you about to change your mind? Are you now prepared to consider allowing me to take my child back home with me?" Sesshomaru shot at her.

"No!" she gasped.

"Are you willing to try living in Venezuela on any other terms?"

"No, but—"

"Then don't waste my time with empty protests. You have, after all, just got exactly what you wanted" Sesshomaru informed her icily.

"Not if you feel like this about it" Rin protested unevenly. "And it isn't what I precisely wanted—"

"Isn't it? Are you now telling me that you don't want me?"

Rin flushed to the roots of her hair, still very sensitive on that subject "I... I—"

"If I were you, I wouldn't argue on that point" Sesshomaru warned, a current of threatening steel in his rich, accented drawl. "In the space of one minute, I could make you eat your words!"

Already in shock, as she was, that level of blunt assurance reduced Rin to writhing discomfiture, but she still said "When I mentioned marriage, I didn't mean it as a serious possibility—"

"No, you laid it out as the ultimate price, the ultimate sacrifice." Sesshomaru's hard sensual mouth twisted. "And I'll get used to the idea. It will be a marriage of convenience, nothing more. I won't allow my child to grow up without me. I also hope I'm not so prejudiced that I can't concede that having both a mother and a father may well be better for the child."

In a daze of conflicting feelings, Rin muttered, "But what about...us?"

"That baby is the only thing that should matter to either of us. Why should he or she pay the price for this fiasco?" That was a telling point for Rin. She bowed her head, guilty conscience now in full sway. Only she still couldn't prevent herself from muttering, "I expected to marry someone who loved me—"

"I didn't expect to marry at all" Sesshomaru traded, without an ounce of sympathy.

"I'll have to think this over—"

"No, you won't. You'll give me your answer now. I'm not in the mood for prima donna tactics!"

Rin experienced a powerful urge to tell him to get lost. And then she thought about being married to Sesshomaru, and other, infinitely stronger emotions swamped her. Over time they could work at building up a reasonable relationship, she told herself. They would have the baby to share. Surely their child would help to bring them together? And, all false pride laid aside, Rin was suddenly agonizingly conscious that she would do just about anything to at least have that chance with Sesshomaru. If she didn't make that leap of faith now, there would be no second opportunity.

"I'll marry you" she murmured tautly.

"Muy bien." Sesshomaru consulted his watch with disturbing cool. "I'm afraid I can't stay. I have a dinner engagement"

"Sesshomaru...?"

He turned back from the door.

Rin swallowed hard. "You can live with this option?" she prompted anxiously. His sudden blazing smile took her completely by surprise, and yet inexplicably left her feeling more chilled than reassured. "Of course... I only hope you're equally adaptable."

Two days later, Rin, clad in a simple white cotton dress, waited in her room for Sesshomaru to arrive.

Rod Bevan had told her that he had suggested the courtyard garden for the wedding ceremony, but Sesshomaru had apparently wanted a more private setting. Something quick that wouldn't interfere with his busy schedule too much… 'Attract the attention of others', Rin had gathered rather sourly. It was hard to believe that this was her wedding day. No flowers, no guests, nothing that might be construed as an attempt to celebrate the event.

Had she been out of her mind to agree to marry Sesshomaru?

She had tossed and turned half the night, worrying about that. Absently she rubbed at the nagging ache in the small of her back. It had begun annoying her around dawn, presumably because she'd been lying in an awkward position. She felt like a water melon, huge and ungainly. She felt sorry for herself. She felt tearful. She felt that she might well be on the brink of making the biggest mistake of her life.

But Sesshomaru himself had put it in a nutshell for her. They were putting the baby first, and this way their baby would have two parents. That was very important to Rin, and she had with constant piety reminded herself of that crucial fact. There was just one cloud on the horizon... a cloud that got bigger and blacker every time her conscience stole an uneasy glance at it.

Sesshomaru didn't want to marry her. He had made no attempt to pretend otherwise. The occasional flash of sanity told Rin that that was all wrong, totally unacceptable as a basis even for a marriage of convenience. But what was the alternative? Rin couldn't see any alternative. Only marriage could give them both an equal share of their child.

She stretched awkwardly, and used her fingers to massage the base of her spine. At that moment, Sesshomaru strode in.

"Dios...let's get this over with as quickly as possible" Sesshomaru urged impatiently as he reached down a strong hand to enclose hers and help her up off the sofa.

Thirty seconds later Rod Bevan arrived, accompanied by two other men. One was the registrar who would perform the ceremony, the other Sesshomaru introduced as his lawyer,

Matsumoto Jaken. The service was very brief. When it was over, everybody shook hands and everybody smiled—with the exception of Sesshomaru. His cool impassivity didn't yield or melt for a second.

In the midst of an increasingly awkward conversation, a sharp, tightening sensation formed around Rin's abdomen. A stifled gasp was wrenched from her.

"What's wrong?" Sesshomaru demanded, anxiety flaring in his stunning amber eyes.

"I think we'd better forget the coffee and the scones" Rod Bevan concluded with a rueful smile as he showed the other two men out.

While he was doing that, Sesshomaru scooped Rin up in his arms and laid her down gently on the bed. The impassive look had vanished. His lean, proud face was full of concern. "The baby's not due for another two weeks" he told her tautly.

"Babies have their own schedule, Sesshomaru. I'd say this one has a pretty good sense of timing" Rod asserted cheerfully.

"I'll stay with you, Rin" Sesshomaru swore.

"No, you will not!" Rin exclaimed in instantaneous rejection. "I don't want you with me!"

"I'd like to see my baby born" Sesshomaru murmured intently, staring down at her with all the expectancy his powerful personality could command.

Dumbly she shook her head, tears of embarrassment pricking her eyes. She could not imagine sharing anything that intimate with a man she hadn't even shared a bedroom with.

As he rang the bell for a nurse, she heard the consultant say something in Spanish. Sesshomaru's response was quiet, but perceptibly edged by harshness. The door thudded shut on his departure.

"He's furious!" Rin suddenly sobbed, torn by both resentment and an odd, stabbing sense of sharp regret

"No...He's hurt" the older man contradicted, patting her clenched fingers soothingly. "For a male as squeamish as Sesshomaru, that was one hell of a generous offer!"

Rin gazed down in drowsy fascination at her baby and fell head-over-heels in love for the second time in her life. He was gorgeous. He had fine, silky black hair and big amber eyes, and a cry that seemed to be attached by some invisible string to her heart. He looked so small to her, but the midwife had said he was big—a whole ten pounds one ounce worth of bouncing, healthy baby. As the nurse settled him into the crib, Sesshomaru appeared with Rod Bevan. Although medication had left Rin feeling sleepily afloat, and incapable of much in the way of thought or speech, she stared at Sesshomaru in surprise. His pale handsome features were strained, his expressive mouth taut, his eyes shadowed.

His tie was missing, the jacket of his suit crumpled and his white shirt open at his strong pale throat.

"What's wrong?" Rin asked worriedly.

Broodingly, Sesshomaru surveyed his sleeping son and thrust a not quite steady hand through his already rumpled black hair. "He's wonderful" he breathed with ragged appreciation. "But supremely indifferent to the danger he put you in!"

The consultant absorbed Rin's frown of incomprehension. "Sesshomaru equates a Caesarean section with a near death experience" he explained with gentle satire as he took his leave in the nurse's wake.

Faint color overlaid Sesshomaru 's blunt cheekbones. He studied Rin's weary face and frowned darkly. He reached for her hand and coiled long fingers warmly round hers. "I wasn't prepared for surgical intervention...why didn't you warn me?"

Rin slowly shook her head.

"Rod tells me you've known for months that the baby would probably have to be delivered that way" Sesshomaru persisted.

"It's quite common" Rin managed to slur, her eyelids feeling as if they had weights driving them downward.

"You're so tiny" Sesshomaru muttered almost fiercely. "I should've thought—"

"Bit late now" Rin incised with drowsy wit.

"My son is beautiful" Sesshomaru murmured. "At least we got something right."

"Our...son" she mumbled.

"We'll call him Rodrigo-"

She winced.

"Jorge?" She pulled a face.

"Emilio?"

She sighed.

' Yuto?'

A faint, drowsy smile curved her lips.

" Takahashi… Yuto" Sesshomaru sounded thoughtfully.

Rin went to sleep.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Rin studied the four confining walls of her room and smiled. Tomorrow she was leaving the clinic. Her smile faded, her eyes apprehensive. They were to spend a couple of days in Sesshomaru's apartment and then fly to Venezuela. Pulling on a luxurious thin silk wrap, she left her room. Every day Yuto went to the nursery for a while to allow her to rest.

Repossessing her son had become the highlight of her afternoon.

A slight frown line drew her brows together. The day Yuto was born, Sesshomaru had seemed so concerned for her, so approachable, she reflected ruefully. But over the past five days the barriers had gone up again.

Sesshomaru's fascination with his son was undeniable. Yet what she had believed might bring them closer together seemed instead to have pushed them further apart. Why was it that when Sesshomaru visited she often felt like a superfluous but extremely well-paid extra? Was it the fact that Sesshomaru never came through the door without some outrageously extravagant gift, which he carelessly bestowed on her in the manner of a rather superior customer bestowing a tip?

Day one, a diamond bracelet. Day two, a half-dozen sets of luxurious nightwear. Day three, a watch from Cartier. Day four, a magnificent diamond ring. It had become embarrassing. Sesshomaru was rich. Sesshomaru was now her husband. But it felt very strange to be receiving such lavish presents from a male so cool and distant he never touched her in even the smallest way.

As she turned the corner into the corridor where the nursery was, Rin was dismayed to see Sesshomaru talking with Jaken outside the viewing window. Neither man having heard her slipperier approach, she ducked into an alcove out of sight. She was too self-conscious to join them when she was so lightly clad, and was thoroughly irritated that vanity had made her set aside her more sedate but shabby dressing gown.

"So how do you feel about this...er...development?" the older man was saying quietly, only yards away from her ignominious hiding place.

"Deliriously happy, Jaken."

"Seriously, Sesshomaru —"

"That was sarcasm, not humour, Jaken. My little bride is much smarter than the average gold-digger" Sesshomaru breathed with stinging bitterness. "She used my son as a bargaining chip to blackmail me into marriage!"

Rigid with shock at that condemnation, Rin pushed her shoulders back against the cool wall to keep her upright.

"But whatever happens now I will keep my son" Sesshomaru completed with harsh conviction.

There was a buzzing sound in Rin's ears. She heard the older man say something but she couldn't pick out the words. Dizzily, she shook her head as the voices seemed to recede. When she finally peered out, the corridor was empty again.

Without even thinking about what she was doing, she fled back to the privacy of her room. A gold-digger...a blackmailer. Trembling with stricken disbelief at having heard herself described in such terms, Rin folded down on the bed; no longer sure her wobbly knees would support her.

The pain went deep and then deeper still. Sesshomaru despised her. 'Whatever happens now I will keep my son.' A cold, clammy sensation crawled down Rin's spine. What had he meant by that? And this was the husband she was hoping to make a new life with in Venezuela? A husband who obviously loathed and resented her? In her turmoil, only one fact seemed clear. She could no longer trust Sesshomaru... and she couldn't possibly risk taking her son to Venezuela without that trust.

Minutes later, a nurse wheeled in Yuto's crib. Seeing Rin already wearing her wrap and slippers, she smiled. "I see you were just about to come and collect him. Your husband said you were still asleep when he looked in on you earlier, but I know you like to feed Yuto yourself."

Alone with her child again, Rin drew in a shivering, steadying breath. Fear still etched in her shaken eyes, she gazed down at her son's innocent little face, and then she got up in sudden decision.

From the cabinet by the bed she extracted her address book. Leafing frantically through it, she found the phone number her friend Kagome had insisted on giving her when they had parted after the reading of Kagura's will. "Sango always knows where I am" she had promised.

Using the phone by the bed, Rin rang Sango. As soon as the older woman had established who she was, she passed on Kagome's number. When she heard Kagome's familiar husky voice answering her call, Rin felt weak with relief.

"It's Rin..." she muttered urgently. "Kagome, I need somewhere to stay..."

An hour after that conversation, having left a note of explanation addressed to Sesshomaru, Rin walked out of the clinic with Yuto in her arms and climbed into the taxi waiting outside.

The receptionist was too busy checking in new patients to notice her quiet exit.

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Hello everybody!

Yes, I'm back! I finally have my life back! And what a better thing to do that update this fic?

I hope you liked it this chapter… I have ready 5 more chapters… dunno if you want me to post them this week or just take my time and put them one per week… what you say guys? Leave a review and let me know!

Now, start working with a new chap! Bye guys!

XOXO Sahora


	27. Contract baby 5

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Five

Rin wheeled the stroller in from the roof garden. Threading back her spectacular mane of brown hair with a manicured hand, Taisho Kagome bent to look in at a warmly-clothed Yuto and exclaimed, "He's so cute I could steal him!"

Rin surveyed her sleeping son with loving eyes. He was four weeks old and he got more precious with every passing day. Remorsefully aware that Sesshomaru was being deprived of their son, she had twice sent brief letters containing photos of Yuto to Rod Bevan at the clinic, knowing he would pass them on.

The fabulous penthouse which she was looking after belonged to Kagome and her husband, Inuyasha, who used an even more spacious central London apartment. Rin was acting as caretaker for the property while the floors below were transformed into similar luxury dwellings. When the work was complete, Taisho Inuyasha would put the building on the market with the penthouse as a show home.

"So how are you feeling?" Kagome prompted over the coffee that Rin had made.

"Guilty" Rin confessed ruefully, but she forced a smile, determined not to reveal the real extent of her unhappiness. Every time Sesshomaru came into her mind, she forced him out again. He had no business being there. He had never had any business being there. Learning to think of Sesshomaru only in relation to Yuto was a priority.

"You shouldn't be feeling like that" Kagome reproved. "You needed this time alone to sort yourself out. This last year, you've been through an awful lot."

"And made some even more awful mistakes" Rin stressed with a helpless grimace. "I shouldn't have married Sesshomaru, It was incredibly selfish and unfair. I still don't know what got into me!"

"Love has a lot to answer for. Sometimes you get so bitter and furious, you want to hit back hard" Kagome proffered, disconcerting Rin with the depth of her understanding.

"And that just creates more strife. It's only when it all gets too much that you suddenly simmering down and come to your senses."

"I wish I'd hit that point before I married Sesshomaru" Rin muttered wretchedly.

"But Sesshomaru has made mistakes too" Kagome contended firmly. "He's also sent out some very confusing messages about exactly what he wants from you. But if you're honest with him when you contact him again, it should take some of the heat out of the situation."

Rin tried to imagine- telling Sesshomaru that she loved him and just cringed. Some excuse to give a man for forcing him into marrying her! That was what she had done, she acknowledged now. And admitting that even to herself still appalled her. But, whether she liked it or not, Sesshomaru had had grounds to accuse her of using their son to blackmail him into marriage. That wasn't what she had intended, but that, in his eyes, had been the end result. In the clinic she had brooded over the hurt and humiliation Sesshomaru had carelessly inflicted in Vermont. If she had never seen Sesshomaru again she would have got over him eventually, but being forced into such regular contact with him again had plunged her right back into emotional turmoil. She'd been too proud to face up to her continuing feelings for him...a woman scorned? She shuddered at that demeaning label. Whatever, she had been stubbornly blind to what was going on inside her own head.

She had still been so bitterly angry with Sesshomaru. Instead of putting those dangerous emotions behind her, before trying to seriously consider their son's future, she had let herself glory in them that day at his apartment. Admittedly, Sesshomaru had provoked her with his refusal to even allow that she might be entitled to a life of her own. But marriage would only have been a viable alternative if Sesshomaru had been a willing bridegroom.

On their wedding day she had also become a new mother. That in itself would have been quite enough to cope with, but Sesshomaru's subsequent behavior had increased her anxiety about what their future together might hold. That overheard conversation had pushed the misgivings she had been trying to repress and ignore out into the open.

"Initially Inuyasha wasn't that fussed about getting married either" Kagome confessed, taking Rin by surprise.

"Did he ever say he would sooner be dead than married?"

"Well, no..."

Of course not. Inuyasha was besotted with his wife. And Kagome was besotted with her husband. But then Kagome was gorgeous, Rin reflected wryly, and naturally physical attraction had initially brought the couple together. Inuyasha hadn't looked at Kagome and thought, I like her...she'd make a good surrogate mother. So why on earth had she tried to make a comparison?

After Kagome's visit, Rin spent the rest of the day being extremely conscious of the presence of every phone in the apartment. She knew it was time to get in touch with Sesshomaru direct. It was now over three weeks since she had left the clinic on a surging tide of rage, pain and fear after hearing Sesshomaru's opinion of her. But as that anger had subsided she had gradually come to appreciate that Sesshomaru had more right to be bitter than she had initially been prepared to admit.

And at least she now knew what had to be done about the situation, she reflected while she showered in the palatial en suite bathroom off the master bedroom. She was ready to humbly acknowledge her mistake, ready to talk to Sesshomaru about having their ill-judged marriage annulled. That would put them right back where they had started, but surely it would at least eradicate Sesshomaru's hostility? Fearful of the response she was likely to receive, it was after nine that evening when she finally dialed the number Sesshomaru had given her weeks earlier in the clinic.

"It's Rin..."

Silence buzzed on the line, and then she heard some background noise she couldn't identify. "Sesshomaru?" she queried uncertainly.

"I heard you" Sesshomaru finally responded, the dark, rich timbre of his accented drawl washing over her with a familiarity that almost hurt. "Where are you?"

"I thought we should clear the air on the phone first" Rin admitted tautly. "Did you get my note?"

"Three pages isn't exactly a "note"."

"I was very upset when I heard you talking about me like that" Rin admitted tightly.

"I did get that message. But I was letting off steam that day. It never occurred to me that I'd be overheard."

Rin relaxed slightly.

"Tell me about my son" Sesshomaru urged.

"Could you...could you just once manage to say our son?"

"That would be difficult"

"Why?" Rin pressed.

""Our" suggests sharing...and right at this minute you are not sharing anything with me" Sesshomaru traded.

Rin paled, but she still coiled round the phone as if it was a fire on an icy night. "I didn't mean...I didn't plan to push you into a marriage you didn't want" she told him unsteadily.

"You just accidentally fell into that wedding ring, gatita?"

Rin turned pink, scrutinizing the narrow gold band where it sat in prominent isolation on the coffee table, removed the same day she'd faced up to the fact that it was the symbol of a farce. "Where are you?"

"In my car...you were saying?" Sesshomaru prompted.

"We don't have to stay married!" Rin rushed to make that point and redeem herself without touching on anything more intimate.

Silence greeted that leading statement

Rin cleared her throat awkwardly in that interim. "I suppose you're still very annoyed that I left the clinic...?" Her voice rose involuntarily, turning that sentence into a nervous question.

"It's possible..."

"All of a sudden I didn't feel I could trust you, and I felt trapped...I didn't think I had any alternative—but it was an impulsive decision—"

"You're distressingly prone to impulses, gatita" Sesshomaru incised with sudden bite. "And this dialogue is just irritating the hell out of me!"

The line went dead. With a frown, Rin shook the silent phone. Nothing. Taken aback that Sesshomaru should have cut off her call, Rin blinked and slowly straightened. The silence of the apartment enclosed her. Only one soft pool of lamplight illuminated the corner of the big lounge.

Rising, she smoothed down her satin and lace nightgown and went to check on Yuto. He was sound asleep, but he was due for a feed soon. In the elegant kitchen she tidied up the remains of her supper and prepared a bottle for Yuto. All the time she was doing that, she agonized over that conversation with Sesshomaru. He had sounded so strange. Strained, wary, then bitingly angry.

The doorbell rang, making her jump and then as quickly relax again. Kagome was her only visitor, and Kagome had called in one other evening, when Inuyasha had had a business dinner. Rin hurried across the octagonal hall. Without bothering to use the intercom, she hit the release button on the security lock which barred access to the private lift in the underground car park.

Then she stilled with a frown. Why would Kagome come to see her twice in one day? Only if there was something wrong! Running an apprehensive hand through the fall of her mahogany hair, Rin waited impatiently. It seemed ages before she heard the low, distant hum of the approaching lift, then the soft ping as it reached the top floor. The doors purred back.

But it was not Kagome; it was Sesshomaru who strode out of the lift.

Rin went into startled retreat, aghast eyes pinned to his intimidating tall and powerfully male physique. Scathing dark-as-gold eyes flashed into hers. "Dios mio...you deserve a bloody good fright!" Sesshomaru informed her wrathfully. "All that high tech security and you don't even check who your visitor is before you invite him up?"

In shock, Rin felt her teeth chatter together. "I...I just assumed it was Kagome —"

"Don't you have any sense? I could've been a rapist, or a robber, and I bet you're alone in this apartment!"

Swallowing hard, Rin gave a jerky nod, her attention fully locked to him. He looked spectacular in a fabulous silver-grey suit, cut to enhance every sleek, muscular angle of his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped and long-legged frame. As her shaken gaze ran over him, her stomach flipped and her mouth ran dry. His magnetic pale good looks were like a visual assault on senses starved of him.

"How...how did you find out where I was?" Her bewilderment was unconcealed. Sesshomaru's wide mouth curled with impatience. "Once I had your phone number, it was a piece of cake to get the address. Why do you think I kept you on the line for so long?"

Since Rin hadn't been conscious until the end of that call that anyone but her had been controlling anything, she gulped.

"Taisho Inuyasha will answer to me for this" Sesshomaru breathed with sudden chilling conviction, lean, strong face forbidding.

"Inuyasha... Kagome's husband? You know him?" Rin exclaimed in surprise.

"Of course I know him, and he owns this building. Here you are on Taisho ground. I thought better of Inuyasha.I didn't think he'd get involved in hiding my wife from me, but now that he has—"

"No, he hasn't!" Rin protested vehemently. "I've never even met Kagome 's husband! I asked her to help me find somewhere to stay and she brought me here—said they needed someone to look after the place. Kagome's certainly not aware that you know Inuyasha. And, as I asked her to be discreet, she's only told Inuyasha that she has an old friend staying here for a while..."

As her voice faltered to a halt, she experienced the feeling that she had already lost Sesshomaru's full attention. As his dark golden gaze roamed over her scantily clad figure, Rin suddenly became intensely conscious of the revealing nature of her nightgown, the delicate straps which exposed her bare shoulders, the sheer lace covering her breasts, the light, clinging fabric which outlined her once-again-slim hips and slender thighs for his appraisal.

As the silence which had seemed to come out of nowhere pulsed, Rin felt her breasts swell with languorous heaviness. Her nipples pinched tight, as if a current of fire had touched them. As she folded her arms over herself in mortified discomfiture, she snapped "Has anybody ever told you that it's very rude to stare?"

The silence lay still and impenetrable as glass.

And then Sesshomaru flung his silver handsome head back and laughed with a rich spontaneity that shook Rin. Laughter put to flight his gravity, throwing his innate charisma to the fore. Her heart lurched. She tried to give him a reproving look, needing him to show her a mood she recognized and stay in it long enough for her to respond accordingly. But at that moment she was like a novice actress without a script and unable to improvise.

"You've gone from voluptuously ripe and enticing to sinfully, sexily slender" Sesshomaru murmured with husky amusement. "And you think it's rude that I should stare at my own wife?"

A deep flush lit Rin's fair skin. She didn't know where to look, but was pretty sure she was not going to look back at him while he was saying things like that. Sinfully, sexily slender? Now she knew what Kagome had meant when she had criticized Sesshomaru for giving her conflicting messages. An impersonal and detached relationship had to have firm boundaries. Sesshomaru had been both impersonal and detached after their wedding, politely concerned that she should be comfortable and content, but nothing more. He had made no attempt to behave like a normal husband who had a relationship with the mother of his child.

And then Rin called herself an idiot. Here she was, wondering why Sesshomaru was behaving so strangely! But wouldn't most men react differently to a woman standing around half-naked in front of them? Hot color flooded her cheeks at that obvious explanation.

"I'll go and put something on and then we can talk" Rin muttered in a rush.

"Let me see Yuto first" Sesshomaru countered, moving closer to catch her hand and check her before she could move.

"You're not still annoyed with Kagome 's husband, are you?" Rin asked anxiously as she took him down the corridor.

"I have a certain tolerance for a man plunged unsuspecting into an embarrassing situation by his bride" Sesshomaru imparted wryly. "Inuyasha is Greek, traditional as they come. He'd come down on his wife like a ton of bricks if he realized that she'd been helping to hide my wife and child from me!"

"It wasn't like that—"

"Only violence or abuse on my part would justify such interference between a man and his wife."

Was that the third or the fourth time that Sesshomaru had referred to her as his wife in as many minutes? Rin thought abstractedly. After three weeks of telling herself that their marriage was a pathetic charade, it seemed so odd to haw Sesshomaru referring to her in such terms.

"Sesshomaru...I really needed some time and space to think" she murmured tautly.

Sesshomaru released her hand. "You've had months to think without me around." But their relationship had changed radically in recent weeks, Rin wanted to protest in frustration as she watched him fluidly cross the elegant guest room to where Yuto lay in his cradle. Their marriage had been one of reckless haste, entered into without proper consideration or adequate discussion.

She hadn't simply taken umbrage and run away; she had known that ultimately she would have to face Sesshomaru again and deal with the situation.

But in her distress and turmoil she had been in no fit state to confront a male who had a naturally domineering and powerful personality—and, worst of all, a male who had everything to gain from putting pressure on her to still accompany him to Venezuela. She had known she had to have time to think away from Sesshomaru before she decided what to do next

Sesshomaru sent her a cool, assessing glance. "I've known Jaclen all my life. What you heard was a private conversation with a friend. I imagine you and your friend Kagome have been less than charitable about me on at least one recent occasion...'

Unprepared for that embarrassingly accurate stab, Rin was betrayed by the burning wave of color which swept up her throat

"Exactly" Sesshomaru purred with rich satisfaction, removing his attention from her to study his infant son, who was squirming into wakefulness. "Do you see me getting all worked up about a fact of life? Could you see me writing three vitriolic pages and vanishing into thin air on such slender proof of intent as the mood of a moment?"

"No, but—"

"There is no "but"" Sesshomaru broke in with derision. "Only women behave like that. Rod thought it might be the baby blues, or some such thing! I knew better."

"I was in the wrong...I should've confronted you" Rin conceded tightly, heart-shaped face fixed in a mutinous expression, revealing the struggle it was to voice those words of contrition.

"Instead of throwing a tantrum on paper" Sesshomaru emphasized, subjecting her to a hard, steady appraisal. "Because I warn you now, I will never, ever allow you to be in a position again where you can use our son as a weapon against me."

At that opportune moment, Yuto mustered his lungs into a cross little cry for attention. Pale and taut now, in receipt of that menacing warning, Rin was grateful for the opportunity to turn away. But Sesshomaru reached his son first, sweeping him up with complete confidence. Smiling down at Yuto, he talked to him in soft, soothing Spanish. In the blink of an eye Sesshomaru had gone from that chilling threat to an unashamed display of tenderness with their son, Rin registered. That was the most intimidating thing to watch —the speed and ease with which he could switch emotional channels. Although there had been nothing emotional about his determination to tell her how he felt about her flight from the clinic. Cool, scornful, cutting.

"I'll get his bottle" Rin muttered.

She skidded down to the bedroom to pull on a fluttering silk wrap first. When she returned to the dimly lit bedroom, Sesshomaru rose from the armchair to let her take a seat. He settled Yuto into her arms and then hunkered lithely down to watch his son greedily satisfy his hunger.

"Dios mio! No wonder he's grown so much!"

Rin cleared her throat awkwardly. "I want you to know that I would never use Yuto as a weapon—"

"You already have" Sesshomaru told her without hesitation, smoothing an astonishingly gentle hand over Yuto's little head before vaulting upright again. "In disputes between couples, the child is often a weapon. You should understand that as well as I do. When your parents' marriage broke up, your father kept you and your mother apart. Why? He was punishing her for leaving him for another man."

Rin was astonished that he should still recall that much information about her background. "I suppose he was" she conceded as she got up to change Yuto.

"Love turns to hatred so easily. It never lasts" Sesshomaru murmured with supreme cynicism.

"It lasts for a lot of people" Rin argued abstractedly, down on her knees and busily engaged in dealing with her son's needs. But she gathered courage from not being forced to meet Sesshomaru's often unsettling gaze. "You know what I said on the phone earlier...about us not having to stay married?"

Having expected an immediate response to that reminder, Rin looked up in the resounding silence which followed.

Sesshomaru was staring back at her with penetrating and grim eyes. "I do."

"Look, why don't you wait in the lounge while I settle Yuto?" Rin suggested uncomfortably.

A few minutes later, Yuto was back in the cradle, snug and comfy and sleepy.

"I love you, you precious baby" Rin whispered feelingly, not looking forward to the discussion she was about to open but convinced that Sesshomaru would be extremely relieved when she suggested that they have their marriage annulled.

As she entered the lounge, Sesshomaru swung round from the fireplace. "I don't like this room. It's claustrophobic with mat conservatory built over the windows" he said with flat distaste. "It's insane to close out such magnificent views!"

"Kagome's terrified of heights. That's why it's like that..." Rin hovered awkwardly. "Sesshomaru —?"

"I'm not giving you a divorce" Sesshomaru delivered before she could say another word. Was he thinking angrily about the prospect of having to offer a divorce settlement? Did he imagine she was planning to make some greedy, gold-digging claim on his legendary wealth?

Rin reddened with annoyance at that suspicion. "We don't need to go for a divorce. We can apply for an annulment and everything will be put right. It will be like this wretched marriage of ours never happened."

Sesshomaru had gone very still, amber eyes narrowing into watchful and wary arrows of light in his dark, devastating face. "An annulment?" he breathed, very low, that possibility evidently not having occurred to him.

"Well, why not?" Rin asked him tautly. "It's the easiest way out"

"Let me get this straight..." Sesshomaru spread two lean pale hands with silent fluency to express apparent astonishment "Just one short month ago you married me, and now, without living a single day with me, you have changed your mind?"

"You're making me sound really weird" Rin muttered in reproach. "I was wrong to let you marry me, knowing that you didn't want that option. Now I'm admitting it—"

"But too late...you're admitting it too late" Sesshomaru declared.

"But it's not too late..." Rin's brow furrowed with confusion, because the discussion was not going in the direction she had expected. "It's not as if we've lived together... or anything like that. Why are you looking at me like I'm crazy? You don't want to be married to me."

As he listened to that stumbling reminder, dark color flared over Sesshomaru 's slashing cheekbones and his stunning amber eyes suddenly blazed gold. "But I have come to terms with the fact that I am married to you!"

"I think we both deserve a bit more man that out of marriage" Rin opined in growing discomfiture. "We rushed into it—"

"I didn't rush" Sesshomaru interrupted. "I just wanted to get it over with!"

"Yes, well...doesn't it strike you that that isn't a promising basis for any marriage?" Rin framed carefully, alarmingly awake to the angry tension emanating from his tall, commanding figure. "I thought you'd be pleased at the idea of having your freedom back."

"Freedom is a state of mind. I now see no reason why marriage should make the slightest difference to my life" Sesshomaru returned with grating assurance.

Rin was momentarily silenced by that sweeping statement.

"You're my wife, and the mother of my son. I suggest you get used to those facts of life" Sesshomaru completed, studying her in angry, intimidating challenge.

A bemused look now sat on Rin 's face. Her lashes fluttered. The tip of her tongue crept out to nervously moisten the taut fullness of her lower lip. "I don't understand..."

Hooded eyes of gleaming gold dropped to ringer on the ripe pink contours of her mouth. "Sometimes you talk too much, gatita..."

"What does that mean...that word you keep on using?" Rin whispered, because the very atmosphere seemed to sizzle, warning her of the rise in tension. Suddenly she was finding it very difficult to breathe.

"Gatita?"Sesshomaru laughed as he closed the distance between them in one easy stride. "It means "kitten". The shape of your face, those big brown eyes...you remind me of a little fluffy cat, cute and soft with unexpected claws."

Having spent a lifetime fighting the downside of being smaller than most other people, Rin was not best pleased to be linked with any image described by words like 'little', 'fluffy' or 'cute'.

"What do you think I am? Some kind of novelty?" she demanded, fighting not to be intimidated by his proximity and towering height.

"If I knew what it was that attracts me to you, the attraction probably would have died by now" Sesshomaru said cynically.

Rin stilled, feathery brows drawing together. "But you're not attracted to me..."

Sesshomaru dealt her a rampantly amused appraisal. "I may have controlled my baser urges, but I've lost count of the times I almost succumbed to the temptation of hauling you into my arms in Vermont" he admitted frankly. "Then I believed your appeal was related to the simple fact that I knew you were carrying my child"

"Yes?" Rin conceded breathlessly, with the aspect of a woman struggling to take a serious academic interest in a confession that had flung her brain into wild confusion. Her heart was now thumping like a manic hammer below her breastbone.

"But now I've finally worked out what got us into this in the first place" Sesshomaru confided, and, without giving her a hint of his intentions, he lifted his hands and slowly tipped the wrap from her taut shoulders. "Subconsciously I picked you to be Yuto's mother because you appealed to my hormones... Once I'd reached that conclusion, suddenly everything that's gone wrong between us started making sense!"

In her complete bemusement at that declaration, Rin was standing so still the garment simply slid down her arms and pooled on the carpet. "What...what?" she began with a nervous start.

Bending, Sesshomaru closed his strong arms round her and almost casually swept her up off her feet. "What are you doing?" Rin shrieked in sheer shock.

Sesshomaru dealt her a slashing smile of unashamed satisfaction. "Husbands don't need to control their baser urges."

"Put me down—"

But Sesshomaru silenced that angry command by bringing his hungry mouth crashing down on hers without further ado.

Rin saw stars. Stars inside her head, stars exploding like hot sunbursts in all sorts of embarrassing places inside her. It wasn't like the only other kiss they had shared—a slow burner, cut off before it reached its height. Sesshomaru's devouring demand had an instant urgency this time, intensifying her own shaken response. He probed her mouth with tiny little darting stabs of his tongue. The raw sexuality of that intimate assault was shockingly effective. It set up a chain reaction right through her whole body, filling her with a wild, wanton need for more. Rin uttered a strangled moan low in her throat, hands sweeping up to dig possessively into his luxuriant silver hair and hold him to her. Without warning, Sesshomaru broke free to raise his head, dark golden eyes intent on her hectically flushed face as he strode out into the hall and started down the corridor. "Dios.. .I could make love to you all night, but I know you're not ready for that yet" he groaned in frank frustration.

Surfacing in turmoil from that predatory kiss, Rin gasped, "Where on earth do you think you're taking me?"

Unerringly finding the master bedroom, opposite the guest room in which Yuto slept, Sesshomaru shouldered wide the door, strode across the carpet and deposited her with almost exaggerated gentleness on the vast divan bed. He hit the light switch by the bed, dimly illuminating the room. Then he straightened with an indolent smile. Rin reared up, bracing herself on her hands, her hair tumbling round her pink cheeks, her eyes very brown as she studied him in shaken disbelief. "Do you honestly think I'm about to go to bed with you?"

It didn't take Sesshomaru two seconds to respond to that question. Surveying her steadily, he jerked loose his silk tie. "Si...you're my wife."

"This is not a normal marriage!" Rin argued, still gazing at him with very wide and incredulous eyes.

"That's been our biggest problem. The sooner this marriage becomes "normal" the better" Sesshomaru delivered, discarding his tie and sliding fluidly out of his jacket to pitch it on a nearby chair. "It's time to forget how we started out—"

"But we didn't start anything!" Rin slung back, watching him unbutton his tailored silk shirt with the transfixed aspect of a woman unable to credit that he was actually undressing in front of her. "I was pregnant before we even met!"

"Stop complicating things. You were pregnant with my baby. That created a special intimacy from the outset. Naturally that made a difference to how I reacted to you—"

"In Vermont?" Rin threw in helplessly. "When you dropped in out of the blue whenever it suited you?"

"It's difficult to be casual any other way."

"I bet you always suit yourself!" Rin condemned thinly.

Sesshomaru gave her a wondering and decidedly amused appraisal. "Five-foot-nothing tall and you're nagging at me like a little shrew!" he marveled.

Rin could feel her temper rising like a rocket desperate to go into orbit "I want you to treat me seriously, Sesshomaru."

"Then say something relevant to the present" he advised rather dryly. "Vermont was months ago. Vermont was when I still believed I was going to collect my child and walk away. We've moved on a lot since then." He peeled off his shirt

Rin stared, throat closing, tongue cleaving to the roof of her dry mouth. He was incredibly beautifully built. All sleek pale skin and muscles, an impressive torso. She blushed and averted her eyes. "I'm not ready to share a bedroom with you yet" she informed him tautly.

"I'm ready enough for both of us" Sesshomaru said with amused assurance.

Without looking at him, Rin sat forward and linked her hands round her upraised knees. "But I wasn't prepared for this... Before you came here tonight I thought we'd be applying for an annulment to end our marriage" she reminded him tensely. "And sex isn't something I can treat casually—"

"Bueno...I'm delighted to hear it"

"And...I haven't done this before" Rin completed jerkily.

The silence spread for endless seconds that clawed cruelly at her nerves. "Como?" Sesshomaru breathed in a near whisper.

Rin snatched in a shaky breath and simply squeezed her eyes tight shut. "I've never had a lover."

"That's not possible" Sesshomaru informed her.

"Yes it is!" Rin said, almost fiercely in her embarrassment, desperate to drop the subject but registering by his audibly shattered responses that there was no current prospect of an easy escape.

"Look at me!" Sesshomaru commanded.

Her hot face a study of mingled chagrin and resentment, Rin glanced up and collided with incredulous dark golden eyes. "Some women don't sleep around!" she snapped.

Sesshomaru moved closer to the bed, his frowning bemusement doing nothing to reduce her suspicion that he now saw her as some kind of freak. "But you were at university...you must've had at least one relationship."

"Not a physical one. I don't believe in intimacy without commitment" Rin admitted stiffly, doggedly fighting her own discomfiture. "And "commitment" is a dirty word to a lot of men these days. I may be out of step with the times, but I'm not ashamed of my views."

"Technically still a virgin" Sesshomaru murmured sibilantly, letting his guttering golden gaze roam over her with hungry intent. "I'm very surprised—but, since I shall be your first lover, I think I can handle the situation. And, as my wife, you can hardly question the level of my commitment."

That proud and confident assurance hovered there for a split second. Rin lost color and dragged her troubled eyes from him to focus on the bare pink toes which protruded from below the hem of her nightgown. "But you didn't want that commitment" she reminded him in a strained tone. "I'll get used to it."

Rin swallowed hard and took her courage in both hands, determined to go to the heart of her misgivings and be frank. "But if we share a bed, Sesshomaru...I expect you to be faithful." The silence thickened and lay heavily.

"No woman tells me what to do" Sesshomaru countered with ferocious bite. "And that includes you!"

Rin froze, and then stared at the fancy silk bedspread until it blurred below her shaken eyes. Then she angled her head back and forced herself to meet the onslaught of his chilling golden eyes. "I think fidelity is the least commitment you could make."

"Dios..." Sesshomaru growled, reaching for his discarded shirt in an abrupt movement and pulling it back on. "So you have found another weapon. Off the top of my head I could name a dozen married men and women cheating on their spouses...do you think they didn't make promises?"

Rin 's heart was beating so fast it felt as if it was sitting at the foot of her throat. "But that's not—"

"This marriage is on trial, as every new relationship is. Do you think living together like brother and sister is a fair test of any relationship between a man and a woman?" Sesshomaru derided with lancing scorn, amber eyes raking mercilessly over her disconcerted face. "Do you fondly imagine that I will be a good little celibate boy while you sit back and smugly weigh up whether or not you can trust me enough to reward me with the right to share your bed?"

"I didn't mean it like that, Sesshomaru!" Rin argued strikingly as she sprang off the bed.

"So far you have had everything your way, but here it stops" Sesshomaru delivered, his cold rage unconcealed. "If you refuse to behave like a normal wife, don't expect me to behave like a husband!"

Shocked and distressed by the savage anger she had provoked, Rin clutched at his arm as he reached for his jacket, " Sesshomaru, I—"

He swung back and closed a powerful arm round her slight body, imprisoning her. He meshed long fingers into her hair, forcing her eyes to meet his. "First you bargain with my son, then you bargain with sex."

Breathless and trembling, she gazed up at him, lost herself in the brilliance of his shimmering amber eyes. "No!" she protested painfully.

Bending, Sesshomaru slid his arm below her slim hips and lifted her unceremoniously up to his level, crushing her swelling breasts into the muscular wall of his chest. Her nostrils flared on the enervating, hot, husky male scent of him. Hard golden eyes assailed hers and held them by pure force of personality. "You will not dictate terms to me. You will not demand empty and meaningless guarantees. A proper wife doesn't put a price on her body!"

"I...I wasn't doing that—"

"The marriage is on trial. ..I am not!" Sesshomaru stressed forcefully. "I will not be judged on the basis of my past!"

Rin couldn't get breath into her lungs. Soft lips parting, she snatched in tiny little pants, drowning against her volition in the power of those compelling golden eyes.

"You're such a little hypocrite" Sesshomaru delivered in a contemptuous undertone, scanning her dilated pupils and flushed cheeks. A sensually intent glitter flared in his assessing gaze, giving him the look of a tiger about to spring as he cupped her chin, lean fingers lingering to smoothly stroke the smooth curve of her jaw. "This close to me, you're like a stick of dynamite hoping for a match!"

"I don't know what you're talking about—"

Striding over to the bed, Sesshomaru lowered her and followed her down onto the divan in one smooth, lithe motion. "Then let me show you..."

Before she could even guess his intention, he had anchored her in place with one long, powerful thigh and brought his hard, mobile mouth crashing down on hers. With his tongue he plundered the sensitive interior with raw, erotic thoroughness. She groaned, plunged helplessly into the grip of mindless pleasure. He slid a hand beneath her, arching her up into contact with the aggressive thrust of his arousal, sending a cascade of fire trickling through her veins to accelerate every pulse.

Sesshomaru lifted his head. Her eyes were dazed, her ripe mouth reddened and swollen. Looking up at that lean, strong face, she trembled, caught up in a spell she was too weak to fight.

With a slumberous smile, Sesshomaru flicked loose the tiny pearl buttons on the lace bodice of her nightie. And all the time Rin was involuntarily watching him, studying the black density and length of the lashes fanning his high cheekbones—the sole feminizing influence in those hard-boned features—the luxuriant silver hair tumbled by her fingers on to his brow, the blue-black shadow already roughening his strong jaw line. All male, stunningly sexy.

"You have beautiful breasts" Sesshomaru sighed.

Disconcerted, she followed the direction of his gaze. Thunderstruck, she stiffened and flushed at the sight of her own breasts, rising bare and shameless for his appraisal, her nipples already distended into wanton pink buds. "Sesshomaru...?"she mumbled unevenly, lying there, wanting to cover herself, wanting to move, and yet inexplicably powerless to attempt to do either.

He allowed his thumb to delicately rub over one prominent peak, and her whole body jerked on the wave of sudden sensation that made her teeth grit in sensual shock and fired an insistent throb between her thighs.

"And you are so responsive" he husked, angling back from her and then, without any warning whatsoever, smoothly sliding off the bed to spring upright again.

She suddenly found herself lying there alone and exposed, and a muffled cry of dismay escaped Rin. She rolled over onto her stomach, shaken, bewildered eyes pinned to Sesshomaru. Hooking his jacket on one forefinger, he glanced back at her from the door, pale face saturnine, golden eyes several degrees below freezing.

"I could take you any time I wanted...and I wil"' he swore, soft and low.

"You can't make me do anything I don't want to do!"

"Oh, yes, I can, gatita. Haven't the last five minutes taught you anything?" Sesshomaru skimmed back with merciless cool. "You have an amazing capacity to lose yourself in passion. By the time I'm finished with you, you will be begging me to share the marital bed!"

Rin was already so devastated by what he had just done to her mat she just gaped at him, heart sinking like a stone, stomach clenching sickly. A cruelly humiliating and deliberate demonstration of sexual power from a male who had homed in like a predator on her one weakness. Him. She was appalled by a depth of diabolic calculation alien to her own more open nature.

"A car will pick you up tomorrow evening. We're flying home" Sesshomaru drawled indolently as he sauntered out through the door. "Buenas noches, Senora Takahashi.' She listened to him walk down the corridor, her hands bunched into fists. She wanted to scream with angry frustration and pain. She hated him, but she hated herself more. He had kissed her and nothing else had mattered. Now her body ached with guilty, unfulfilled passion, the enemy of every fine principle she had ever believed in. She was finally finding out how hard it was to withstand physical temptation. And Sesshomaru? She thought furiously. Sesshomaru had simply walked away, content to have made his point in the most ego-crushing manner available.


	28. Contract baby 6

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Six

Rin sat in a comfortable seat in the spacious cabin of Sesshomaru's private jet and suppressed a sigh. Yuto was asleep in his sky cot and Sesshomaru had still to arrive. He had been delayed.

She glanced curiously at Irena, the young and pretty stewardess watching out for Sesshomaru's arrival. A sultry brunette, she looked like a model in her smart uniform, but in spite of the long wait she had coolly avoided any real contact with her employer's wife. A man's woman, uninterested in her own sex, Rin had decided.

Hearing the sound of feet on the metal steps outside, seeing Irena's face blossom into surprising warmth as she moved out of view to greet Sesshomaru, Rin was annoyed to recognize her own powerful sense of anticipation—and, mortifyingly, her childish stab of envy that the brunette should get to see him first. Swallowing hard on that lowering awareness, she studied the carpet, fighting to contain her own dangerously volatile emotions.

"Sorry, I'm late..." Sesshomaru drawled with infuriating cool, crossing the cabin to peruse his slumbering son and comment, in a tone of satisfaction and pride "Yuto is always so peaceful."

"You've never seen him any other way. Actually, your son kept me up half the night!"Rin complained thinly, before she could think better of it.

Sesshomaru laughed as he sank lithely down opposite her, forcing her to look at him for the first time. And his sheer stunning impact simply slaughtered her carefully prepared outer shield of tranquility. Last night he had finally ripped away her defenses and made her betray her-self in his arms. Now she discovered there could be no pretense of indifference or detachment, not when her nails were already digging painfully into her palms, her skin dampening, her breathing quickening, her eyes unable to rest any place but on him. Those pale features, already as familiar to her as her own yet still possessed of the most intense charismatic appeal. The lean, arrogant nose, the spectacular dark- golden, deep-set eyes, the wide, hard mouth, the aggressive jaw line. Drop-dead gorgeous, and yet every angle of that pale handsome face was stamped with immense strength and character.

"The ranch, the whole household will revolve round our son" Sesshomaru promised with quiet amusement "He will be spoiled by so many willing helpers that your nights should be undisturbed from now on."

Rin could see no reflection of her own high wire tension in him. He talked briefly, lightly about their destination. The isolated ranch where his ancestors had lived for generations was on the cattle plains he called the Llanos. It would be very hot, possibly quite wet as the rainy season wasn't quite over yet, Sesshomaru warned in the sort of bracing, healthy, dismissive tone she suspected the hardy might use to refer to a hellhole they loved and honored as home, regardless of its deficiencies.

Soon after the jet had taken off, Sesshomaru released his belt and leant forward to unsnap Rin 's. Rising, he curved strong hands over her taut shoulders to urge her up into the circle of his arms. "What are you—?"

"Lesson one on being a proper wife" Sesshomaru murmured with amused dark eyes as he scanned her bewildered face. "Even when you're really mad at me, you should always look glad to see me when we've been apart."

That close to that lithe, lean body, Rin trembled. "You are so changeable" she condemned shakily. "You were furious with me last night—'

"I'm just not used to a negative response in the bedroom" Sesshomaru countered with velvet-soft satire. "And when I've been forced to ride roughshod over my every reservation to become a legally wedded husband, that negative response took some swallowing."

"But I tried to explain how I felt—"

"Not with an explanation I can take seriously, Rin" Sesshomaru interrupted with conviction. "You want me. I want you. You have a wedding ring to satisfy your principles. Sex is only a physical hunger, an appetite...not something important enough to become a divisive issue between us."

Rin blinked, striving to think that through and shrinking from the feelings she experienced in response. Not important? An appetite, something to be casually, even carelessly satisfied as and when the need took him? Such terminology ensured that there was little danger of her overestimating the extent of her own attractions, she conceded in fierce pain.

A firm hand caught her chin, tipping up her face, making her meet the passionate gold of his intent gaze. "If you expect too much from me, I am certain to disappoint you. Don't do that to us. Be satisfied with what we have" Sesshomaru warned almost roughly.

Rin flung her head back. "And what do we have?"

In answer, he attacked on her weakest flank. He lifted her up into his powerful arms, his sensual mouth took hers and she was lost, filled with the mindless pleasure of simply being there. All she was capable of at that moment was feeling—feeling what he could make her feel. The wild, sweet excitement as seductive as a drug, the shivering sensitivity of her own body crushed into the wonderfully masculine strength of his, heady sensation born at every point where they touched.

He released her lips and she discovered she was sprawled across his lap like a wanton, without any memory of how she had got there. Struggling to catch her breath, she stared into the stunning eyes level with her own. Long pale fingers framed her flushed cheekbones and eased her back from him.

"At least we have a starting point, gatita. It will be enough" Sesshomaru swore with silken satisfaction. "Now I think you should get some rest"

"Rest?" she repeated unevenly.

"You look exhausted, and this is a very long flight"

' Yuto...?' she mumbled.

"I can manage him for a few hours" Sesshomaru asserted with cool confidence.

Rin scrambled clumsily upright again, face burning under the onslaught of a wave of hot color. Her legs were so wobbly she wasn't sure she could walk, and she felt dizzy, disorientated.

Sesshomaru watched her retreat to the sleeping compartment every step of the way, a slightly amused smile beginning to curve his unexpressive mouth. Rin shut the door and sagged, furious with him, furious with herself. First he treated her like a toy to be played with, and then he dismissed her like a child after a goodnight kiss! It made her feel controlled and horribly vulnerable, because she literally didn't know at any given time what Sesshomaru was planning to do next Just because he was experienced.. .and she wasn't!

Oh, dear heaven, no, she reflected, not wanting to even think about how and where he had gained all mat cool sexual assurance. She curled up in a tight ball on the built-in bed.

Until Sesshomaru had said it she hadn't realized just how very tired she was. Hopefully she would be better equipped to deal with him when she felt a little more buoyant.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Rin woke up slowly, eyes opening blankly on her surroundings until she finally registered that she was still on the Takahashi jet. Glancing at her watch, she groaned in disbelief. She had just enjoyed the equivalent of a full night's sleep for the first time since Yuto had been born... Yuto! Pushing her wildly tumbled hair off her brow, Rin rolled off the bed and opened the door back into the main cabin.

A cozy and unexpected little scene met her startled eyes. Chattering in soft, intimate Spanish, Irena was leaning over Sesshomaru while he cradled Yuto. She was as close to Sesshomaru as a lover. Her big brown eyes swept Rin's sleep-flushed face and crumpled clothing in a hostile look at the interruption.

"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" Rin demanded curtly of Sesshomaru.

"You were exhausted, and Irena was happy to help out." As Sesshomaru ran his stunning amber eyes over her tousled appearance, his ebony brows drew together in a slight but highly effective frown. "You should get changed. We'll be landing at Maiquetia in an hour."

The stewardess still had one possessive hand resting on Sesshomaru's shoulder. Rin was appalled to register that the source of her own ferocious tension was undeniably a hot nasty jealousy which fuelled instantly suspicious thoughts. What had they been doing all those hours while she was asleep and safely out of the way? Was that why Sesshomaru had been so keen to send her off to rest? Why did Irena look like a cat that had got the cream?

As Rin studied Sesshomaru with a highly combustible mix of suspicion, distrust and embittered shameful longing, he stood up and calmly settled their son into his neat little cot. "I need a shave."

"Did you get any sleep?" Rin muttered tautly.

"Enough. I don't need much." Sesshomaru strode past her.

"Your husband is a real dynamo, señora. He has worked for most of the flight" the young stewardess shared with a coy look of admiration, tossing her head with a husky lighted laugh. "But don't worry, I ensured that he ate and took time out to relax."

At that news, Rin paled and went back into the sleeping compartment, but Sesshomaru had already disappeared into the compact bathroom next door. She lifted the white lightweight dress she had laid out earlier and smoothed abstractedly at the remaining creases while she waited for Sesshomaru to emerge. Finally the door opened. She felt absolutely sick by then, suspicion and jealousy making mincemeat of all rational thought.

"Do you sleep with Irena?" That blunt question just erupted from Rin. It was inside her head, but she could not for the life of her work out how the question had got from her brain onto her tongue.

Sesshomaru studied her without any expression at all. "Tell me you didn't ask me that."

That eerie lack of reaction completely spooked Rin. She crimsoned, pinned her lips together and then opened them again, driven by an overwhelming need for reassurance.

"After what you said the night before last about not behaving like a husband...not to mention the way she's behaving around you...naturally I'm suspicious!"

"If I answer that insanely stupid question, I will lose my temper with you" Sesshomaru warned, very soft and low, narrowed dark eyes flaming gold between lush black lashes.

"I don't trust you—"

"I will not live with jealous scenes. In fact nothing would disgust me more or alienate me faster. I do not sleep with my employees. The only woman in my life at present is you"

Sesshomaru stated with a feral flash of even white teeth which suggested that even making that admission went severely against the grain.

Rin relaxed ever so slightly. "I want to believe that, but—"

"The truth is that you are jealous of Irena" Sesshomaru condemned with whiplash cool. "Could that be because she makes the effort to look like an attractive adult woman while you're still dressing like an adolescent who doesn't want to grow up?"

Utterly unprepared for that counter-attack, Rin felt her soft mouth fall wide. Sesshomaru flicked the white sundress off the bed. "A three-year-old could wear this! Embroidered flowers at the hemline, shapeless—"

"It was bought in a children's department. Ordinary shops don't cater for women my height and size!" Rin shot at him shakily. "And, since I don't want to dress like a precocious teenybopper, I have to choose the plain outfits."

Sesshomaru shrugged. "OK...I'll remedy that."

"I am not jealous of that woman... and you needn't think you can change the subject—"

"Oh, I'm not changing it, Rin ...I'm just refusing to talk about it" Sesshomaru incised with sudden grimness, shooting her a coldly derisive look. "Use your brain. Irena is Venezuelan. Venezuelan women are naturally glamorous, confident and flirtatious—"

"My goodness, I can hardly wait to meet the Venezuelan men! What a fun time I'm going to have in your country!" Rin forecast furiously.

In a sudden movement that shook Rin inside out, Sesshomaru strode forward and closed a lean and powerful hand round her slender forearm, dwarfing her with his intimidating height and breadth. With his other hand, he pushed up her chin, subjecting her to a splintering look of burning outrage that made her stomach turn an abrupt somersault and her knees go weak and wobbly.

"What is mine is mine" Sesshomaru stressed with barely suppressed savagery. "I'd break you into little pieces for the jaguar to feed on before I would let any other man near you!"

Plunged willy-nilly into an atmosphere suddenly raw with scorching lightning currents of threat, Rin simply gazed up at him like a stupefied rabbit.

With equal abruptness, Sesshomaru released her again, a betraying rise of blood delineating his proud cheekbones as he absorbed her bewilderment. "I'm not a jealous man" he asserted in a roughened undertone. "But I am very conscious of my honor, and of my son's need for stability in his life."

Rin nodded like a little wooden marionette, afraid to move too close to the hungry flickering flames of a bonfire.

Sesshomaru was even paler now, his superb bone structure harshly prominent "I'm sorry if I overreacted..."

If, Rin reflected dizzily. Such a civilized term after so violent a loss of temper, brief though it had been. And she had discovered another double standard. The man who would be owned by no woman fully believed he owned his wife like a possession. But, ironically, what troubled her most at that instant was the stark awareness that she had really upset Sesshomaru. Yet she hadn't a clue why her silly sarcastic comments should have exploded his cool, controlled facade into a shocking blaze of primitive fury.

"Put it down to jet lag" Sesshomaru added almost jerkily, pushing long fingers restively through his silver hair. "You are not that kind of woman. If you had been, I would never have agreed to marry you."

What kind of woman? The unfaithful type? What a peculiar thought for a male like Sesshomaru to harbor! For, on the face of it, Takahashi Sesshomaru was a real heartbreaker, possessed of every quality most likely to hold a woman's attention. Personality, looks, sex-appeal, wealth, power. How many women would risk losing Sesshomaru by betraying him in another man's bed?

"I will join you at the ranch in a couple of days" Sesshomaru murmured flatly as he moved past her—suddenly, she registered; keen to abandon the dialogue...and her. The suspicion hurt.

"Join me?" Rin echoed uncertainly. "What are you talking about? Where are you going?"

"Tonight I'm afraid I'll have to stay in Caracas. Tomorrow I'll be in Maracaibo, and possibly the next day as well. I have several urgent business matters to deal with. I've been abroad for many weeks" he reminded her dryly. Alone again, Rin freshened up and slid with a distinct lack of enthusiasm into the simple white cotton dress. When she returned to the main cabin she could not avoid noticing Irena's frequent star struck glances in Sesshomaru 's direction, and her pronounced need to hover at his elbow as eager as a harem slave to satisfy his every wish. No longer did she marvel at her own suspicions earlier.

The brunette had a real giant-sized crush on Sesshomaru. And possibly Sesshomaru was so accustomed to inviting female flattery and exaggerated attention that he genuinely hadn't noticed.

"OK, so there is a problem" Sesshomaru breathed, disconcerting Rin with a dark satiric glance of acknowledgement in Irena's direction while she was gathering up Yuto 's scattered possessions at the far end of the cabin. "We were both fifty per cent wrong, but, believe me; I have never given her the slightest encouragement."

Rin nodded in embarrassed silence, feeling like an idiot over the fuss she had made but fearful of re-opening the subject lest she make things even worse.

Sesshomaru parted from her at the airport as coolly and politely as a distant acquaintance, a shuttered look in his brilliant golden eyes. Irena escorted Rin onto the light plane which would whisk her and her son out to the Takahashi ranch. Rin's heart was already sinking.

Would it always be like this with Sesshomaru? Would she never know Sesshomaru? Would she never understand what went on inside that complex and clever head of his? And was it possible that that 'urgent business' he had mentioned had merely been a convenient excuse to leave her? How humiliating it was to suspect that Sesshomaru had actually intended to accompany her to his home until she'd treated him to that foolish scene! After all, hadn't he told her up front that jealousy disgusted him, and that nothing would drive him away quicker?

It was lashing with rain when Rin clambered off the plane, protected by a giant umbrella extended over her and Yuto by the pilot. He helped her into the waiting four-wheel drive. Neither he nor the driver appeared to have a word of English. Rin was now feeling less guilty and angrier with Sesshomaru. How did he think it felt for her to arrive at the estancia alone, where nobody knew her and where very possibly nobody would even be able to speak to her?

Through the streaming windows she caught glimpses of a large spreading collection of buildings. Palm trees were being battered in the torrential downpour. And yet the heat was intense, the humidity high. A hellhole, Rin decided, in the right mood to make that snap judgment Sesshomaru had posted them out to the boonies to live in a hellhole and just gone on his own sweet way, just as he was used to doing, just as he no doubt expected to continue doing...

A huge colonial-style house adorned by fancy verandahs and an upper balcony wreathed with climbers loomed out of the rain. Clutching Yuto like a parcel, Rin made a dive through the torrent when the car door opened, fled up the steps and surged indoors into the mercifully air-conditioned cool without a single sidewise glance or pause.

She had a split second to catch her breath on the magnificence of the vast reception hall she stood in before she focused on the huddle of female servants sheltering behind the front door, all staring at her and the baby she held wide-eyed. Silence hung for the space of twenty seconds.

A tall and stunningly beautiful blonde strolled into view. Frowning regally at Rin, she shot something at her in Spanish.

"I'm sorry, I don't speak—"

"I am the Condesa Melina D'Agnolo. Where is Sesshomaru?" the woman demanded in accented but perfect English.

"Still in Caracas" Conscious of the staff now sidling out of a door to the left as fast as mice escaping a cat, Rin gazed enquiringly at the other woman. Sheathed in a superb cerise suit, glittering jewels adding to her imperious air of well-bred exclusivity, the lady exuded angry impatience.

"Caracas?" It was an infuriated shriek of disappointment. As the shrill sound echoed off the high ceiling, Yuto jerked in fright and let out a loud, fretful wail.

Melina D'Agnolo stalked forward and surveyed him with unconcealed distaste. "So this is the child I have heard rumors about. It does exist. Well, what are you waiting for? Stop it making that horrible noise!"

"He's just hungry—"

"When will Sesshomaru arrive?"

"In a couple of days."

"Then I shall wait for him" Melina announced, eyes hardening as Yuto continued to cry noisily in spite of Rin 's efforts to console him. "But you will keep that child upstairs, out of my sight and hearing"

"I'm afraid I have no intention—" Rin began angrily.

"I will not tolerate impertinence. You will do as you are told or you will very soon find yourself out of a job!" Melina informed her. "In Sesshomaru's absence, I am in charge here." Realizing that she had been mistaken for an employee, Rin raised her head high, intending to explain that she was Sesshomaru's wife. But the other woman had already walked away to utter a sharp command in Spanish. A middle-aged woman in a black dress appeared so quickly she must have been waiting somewhere nearby. Melina issued what sounded like a staccato stream of instructions.

The older woman glanced in open dismay at Rin.

"The housekeeper will take you upstairs to the nursery. You can eat up there. I don't want to be bothered by the child...is that understood?"

"Why do you say you're in charge here? Are you related to Sesshomaru?" Rin enquired stiffly, and stood her ground.

Melina's green eyes narrowed with suggestive languor, full lips pouting into a coolly amused smile. "I've never been asked to identify myself in this house before. Sesshomaru and I have been intimate friends for a very long time."

Every scrap of color drained from Rin 's face. There was no mistaking the meaning of that proud declaration. Her stomach curdled. It was a judgment on her, Rin thought sickly. She had foolishly made that scene over the infatuated Irena and now fate had served up her punishment: she was being confronted by the real thing. A genuine rival...

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Melina D'Agnolo enquired haughtily.

"I think this is going to be embarrassing" Rin muttered.

Melina dealt her an impatient frown of incomprehension.

"Sesshomaru and I got married a month ago."

The thunderous silence seemed to reverberate in Rin's ears, and then Yuto started crying again.

The svelte blonde stared at Rin with raised brows, her incredulity unfeigned. "It isn't possible that you are married to Sesshomaru —"

"I'm afraid it is..." Rin cut in, and switched her attention ruefully to the housekeeper still waiting for her.

The older woman murmured gently, "Let me take the little one upstairs and feed him for you, señora."

Grateful for the chance to remove Yuto from the hostile atmosphere, Rin laid her son- in the housekeeper's arms with a strained smile.

"Señora?" Melina D'Agnolo echoed the designation with stinging scorn. "I think we need to talk."

Sesshomaru, where are you when I need you? Rin thought in furious discomfiture. This was his department, not hers! How could Sesshomaru possibly have overlooked the necessity of telling his mistress that he had acquired a wife? Rin turned reluctantly back to face the angry blonde. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"If you prefer it, we can talk out here, where all the staff can hear us."

Rigid with tension, Rin followed Melina into a gracious reception room filled with superb antique furniture. "I don't see that we have anything to say to each other—"

"Obviously Sesshomaru married you because of the child. The oldest ploy of all. I expect you think you've been very clever." Melina loosed a grim little laugh. "Yes, I'm shocked, and I don't mind admitting it. Ten years ago Sesshomaru loved me, but he still wouldn't marry me, so I married someone else to teach him a lesson!"

Wanting no share of such confidences, Rin hovered, stiff with strain.

"So you needn't tell me that Sesshomaru loves you because I wouldn't believe it! I am the only woman Sesshomaru has ever loved," Melina informed her with blistering confidence. "I have never been concerned by his other little flirtations."

"That's your business, not mine."

"Your marriage won't last six months" Melina said with dismissive certainty. "Sesshomaru cherishes his freedom. When my husband died, I chose to be patient. I have never interfered with Sesshomaru's life—"

"Then don't do it now" Rin slotted in tightly.

"If you think that is a possibility, you're even more of a child than you look!" Melina threw her a scornful look of superiority. "And next month you'll be expected to deal with two hundred guests over the fiesta weekend. There'll be a rodeo, a friendly polo match and a non-stop party. Are you used to mixing with the wealthy elite? How good are you on a horse? I'm usually Sesshomaru's hostess, but now the job's yours...and if it doesn't go like clockwork, he'll be furious."

Rin had paled. "I'm sure I'll manage—"

"Sesshomaru will come back to me...of course he will. It's only a matter of time" Melina asserted with contemptuous green eyes. "If you're out of your depth with me, how much more out of your depth are you with him? I almost feel sorry for you. When Sesshomaru's bored, he is cruel and critical and callous—"

"I think it's time you left" Rin interrupted flatly.

"If I were you, I wouldn't mention this meeting" the blonde murmured sweetly as she strolled to the door. "Sesshomaru detests jealous scenes. It would be much wiser for you to pretend that this meeting never took place."

"Why should you be kind enough to give me that warning?"

Melina laughed unpleasantly. "You already have all the problems you can handle. I shall enjoy watching you struggle to fill my shoes!"

Rin watched the blonde stalk across the hall and up the imposing staircase. She released her breath very slowly but she still felt utterly stunned. Melina D'Agnolo had been a severe shock. Sesshomaru's mistress—proud and unashamed of her position in his life and in no hurry to vacate his bed.

And one look at Melina had been sufficient to tell Rin that her misapprehension about the pretty stewardess on board the jet had been laughable. Melina was much more convincing in the role of mistress. Melina with her exquisite face, fabulous figure and tremendous elegance and poise. Mature, classy and sophisticated. Sesshomaru's kind of woman.

And what even the greatest optimist would acknowledge as seriously challenging competition...

No, Rin scolded herself fiercely. She wasn't going to allow herself to start thinking that way. Sesshomaru had said that she was the only woman in his life now, and he had given her no cause to doubt his sincerity. OK, she had just suffered through a horribly embarrassing encounter and been forced to endure the other woman's spiteful attacks, but Melina would pack and depart and she would never have to see her again. She would put Melina right back out of her mind. Sesshomaru's past was none of her business, she reminded herself staunchly.

Upstairs, Rin wandered across a huge landing and picked a passageway. Finally, after a couple of wrong choices, she peered into a nursery as exquisitely furnished as a room in a glossy magazine. A crowd of smiling, whispering female staff surrounded the imposing antique four-poster cot. Freshly clothed and clearly content, Yuto nestled within the cot's hand-embroidered bedding like a little king, giving an audience and basking in all the attention. "It has been so long since there was a child here" the housekeeper confided.

"Was this Sesshomaru 's cot?" Rin asked, smiling.

The older woman looked away uncomfortably. "No, señora...but it was his father's" Briefly wondering what she had said to disconcert the woman, Rin was led down a corridor lined with fabulous oil paintings and into a magnificent big bedroom. Realizing that it had stopped raining, Rin opened the French windows and stepped out onto the sun-drenched balcony to gaze out appreciatively on the beautifully landscaped gardens.

Lush lawns and colorful vegetation were shaded by clumps of graceful mature trees. In the distance an architectural extravaganza of a small building complete with turrets caught her attention.

"What's that used for?" she asked her companion.

The older woman stiffened. "It is not used for anything, señora"

"What a waste...it's so pretty."

"It is full of ghosts, not a good place" The housekeeper retreated back indoors, seemingly unaware that she had said anything that might cause Rin to stare after her in wide-eyed surprise and curiosity. "I will fix you some breakfast, señora. You must be hungry."

That evening, Rin rested back in the huge sunken bath in the en suite bathroom and felt like a queen lying in solitary state. She poked a set of pink toes up through the bubbles covering the surface of the water and sighed.

Melina D'Agnolo had vanished like the bad fairy. Only when she had disappeared had it occurred to Rin to wonder how she had gone, and to where. By car, by plane? The Takahashi ranch was set in miles and miles of cattle country.

In the afternoon Rin had walked out to the furthest edge of the gardens and seen the plains stretching as far as the eye could reach in every direction, their monotony broken up by occasional clumps of trees, stretches of flood water that glinted in the hot sun and ground that seemed to sweep up and merge with the endless blue sky.

She closed her eyes and let herself think about Sesshomaru. Would he phone? Once she had told him not to bother and he hadn't given her a chance to say no a second time. But how the heck could she possibly measure up to a woman as gorgeous as Melina? The fear crept in and she tried to squash the thought and the feeling simultaneously.

"Lesson two on being a proper wife..." a silken drawl imparted lazily from the door. "If you have to be in the bath when I come home, make it one I can share. Omit the heavily scented bubbles."


	29. Contract baby 7

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.**

Chapter Six

Rin's mouth fell open at the same instant as her eyes shot wide. Sesshomaru stood in the doorway, a sizzling smile of amusement slashing his mouth as he absorbed her astonishment.

"But you look kind of cute..." Sesshomaru conceded, brilliant golden eyes roaming with unconcealed interest over the rose-tipped breasts pertly breaking through the bubbles for his scrutiny.

Wrenching free of her paralyzed stillness, Rin sat up in a frantic rush and hugged her knees to her chest. Sesshomaru gave an extravagant wince. "Sometimes you act like a ten-year old, gatita."

"Couldn't you have knocked on the door?" Rin demanded defensively.

"The door wasn't even closed" he reminded her dryly, and he leant back against the door, slowly pushing it shut, as if he was making some kind of statement.

Sooner than ask him what he was doing, and already having discarded as too dangerously provocative the idea of asking him to step outside while she vacated the bath and covered herself, Rin studied him anxiously from be low her dark lashes.

A tide of terrifying longing swept over her in a stormy wave. Her own heartbeat thundered inside her ears, and all the time her eyes were roaming all over him in hungry, helpless little darts. He was so incredibly tall in his light grey suit, his white shirt throwing his pale skin into exciting prominence, his luxuriant silver hair gleaming under the recessed lights above, eyes glinting wicked gold in that lean, devastating face.

"You missed me" Sesshomaru purred, like a jungle cat basking in sunlight, his husky accent thickening and sending a trail of reaction down her taut spinal cord.

"For heaven's sake, how could I have missed you? I last saw you in the early hours of this morning!" Rin snapped, but it was a challenge to snap when it was so outrageously difficult to even breathe normally in his radius.

"You don't just need lessons on how to be a proper wife...you need a bloody intensive training course!" Sesshomaru shot back at her with shocking abruptness. "What does it take to get a pleasant response from you? Thumbscrews?"

Jolted by that sudden blaze of temper, Rin gazed up at him strikingly. She felt the most awful stinging surge of tears threatening at the back of her eyes. Hurriedly she bent her head. Maybe meeting your gorgeous mistress spoilt my day, she almost slung accusingly, but caution restrained her.

"Maybe I'm not used to sharing a bathroom" she muttered ruefully.

"Then this is where we will start" Sesshomaru delivered.

Start what, where? Rin wondered in complete confusion.

"Dios...I can hardly believe I flew back here just to be with you!"

"Did you? I thought your urgent business took precedence."

"Possibly the prospect of getting my bride horizontal on the marital bed had greater appeal."

"Oh..." Rin said after a startled pause. "Do you have to be so crude?"

Without the slightest warning, strong hands curved under her arms and a split second later she was airborne. Sesshomaru straightened and held her ruthlessly imprisoned in arms. She dripped water and bubbles everywhere, her shaken face aghast. "Not so shrewish now, are you?" he murmured with unconcealed amusement.

"Please put me back in the water" Rin mumbled pleadingly. Sesshomaru gazed into her shrinking brown eyes and slowly lowered her back into the bath with careful hands. "You're such a baby sometimes...I wasn't going to hurt you!" he breathed in stark reproach. Still trembling, Rin hugged the far side of the bath. "I don't know why I'm so nasty with you," she lied—because she knew very well. "I'm not usually like this with anybody."

"You were so sweet in Vermont. I didn't even know you had a temper, never mind that viper's tongue" Sesshomaru admitted wryly. "What went wrong?"

You did. At that stupid question Rin was tempted to throw something at him. She had fallen hopelessly in love, more deeply in love than she had ever believed possible, and nothing had ever been the same since. He didn't love her, he didn't believe in love, and she couldn't risk letting him find out how she really felt about him. Given an ounce of such ego-boosting encouragement, he would walk all over her and take her for granted the way he had in Vermont.

The female sex had spoilt Sesshomaru. For minimum input he had always received maximum benefit—everything on his terms, everything the way he wanted it. And their marriage still felt like a deadweight threatening ball and chain to him. He didn't have to tell her that. She knew it. She marveled that he should believe that taking her to bed would miraculously change anything, particularly when he had already spelt out the fact that he didn't rate sex any higher than an 'appetite'.

And where did that leave her? The virginal bride with novelty value? A fresh body for his enjoyment?

Sesshomaru discarded his jacket on a chair and tossed his tie on top of it. Emerging from her insecure reverie, Rin gaped. Shoes and socks were summarily discarded.

"What are you doing?"

Sesshomaru sent her a gleaming glance of intent. "Losing your virginity is not akin to a visit to a sadistic dentist"

"What would you know about it?"

A wolfish grin slashed his mobile mouth. "I'll fill you in on my impressions tomorrow morning"

Off came his shirt, to be carelessly discarded in a heap. Rin's throat clogged up at sight of that magnificent torso and his powerful pectoral muscles. "Is this my anatomy lesson?" she whispered shakily.

"You need one?" As free of inhibition as she was repressed, Sesshomaru flicked loose his belt and slid out of his well-cut trousers.

Although Rin wanted to look away, she couldn't. Her throat thickened, her mouth running dry. Her mesmerized attention locked on to the silky furrow of hair running down over his flat, taut stomach to disappear tantalizingly beneath the band of a pair of black briefs.

"You're beginning to embarrass me" Sesshomaru censured mockingly.

Caught staring, Rin twisted her head away, cheeks flaming. "I don't think anything embarrasses you!" she condemned unevenly.

"You really are shy...I thought it was an act in Vermont" Sesshomaru confessed without warning. "You were so open and forthright in every other way—"

"I don't put on acts" Rin protested feverishly. "I can't help the way I was brought up any more than you can."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sesshomaru breathed with sudden brooding darkness. Involuntarily she shivered, catching the warning nuances in his accented drawl and spooked by what she could not understand. "My father believed girls should be modest and quiet and strait-laced, and my godmother agreed with him—"

"Whatever happened to the "quiet"?" Sesshomaru cut in with unhesitating humor. Her momentary ripple of foreboding ebbed, only to be replaced by a more pressing urge to leap out of the bath as Sesshomaru stepped in. Arms wrapped tightly round her knees, Rin twisted her head back round and slung him an accusing glance as he settled fluidly down on the other side of the bath and rested his burnished silver head back against the inset cushioning.

"Look, why can't we just do it in bed like other people?" she suddenly launched at him in mortified condemnation. "I think you're going out of your way to make this more difficult for me!"

Dealing her a briefly bemused appraisal, Sesshomaru suddenly flung his head back and burst out laughing without restraint. "Caramba, cielito—"

"That is it...that is finally it!" Rin raked at him, chagrin tipping over into a sudden empowering rage that enabled her to begin rising without any constraining fear of exposing her own body.

Sesshomaru leant forward and caught her hand, tipping her sufficiently off-balance to ensure that she was powerless to resist the ease with which he reached up his other hand and tumbled her down on top of him, water splashing everywhere. Panting furiously for breath, Rin pulled herself back from him. "Let go of me!" Sesshomaru regarded her with deceptive languor.

"I wasn't actually planning to consummate our marriage here...I just wanted to talk..."

"T-talk?" Rin parroted weakly as she subsided back beneath the water to conceal herself, carefully avoiding the slightest contact with his long extended limbs.

"No need to panic...at least...not yet" Sesshomaru drawled smoothly, the golden gleam deep in his shimmering amber eyes increasing the color in her hot face. "In my innocence I believed that this was a comparatively mild first step towards greater intimacy."

"Do you normally just talk in the bath with your women?" Rin practically snarled in her discomfiture, knowing that any plea of innocence was not to be trusted in this instance, perfectly well aware that Sesshomaru was highly amused by her enervated state.

The golden gleam vanished, leaving her gazing in sudden fear into wintry cool yes.

"Infierno! You're obsessed. Jealousy is a very destructive thing. Do you want to destroy us before we even begin with these constant attacks?"

Pale now, Rin just closed her eyes. In the space of a moment she saw a dozen beautiful female faces skim cruelly through her mind's eye. Only then did she grasp the source of her jealousy, the day when it had been born to increase the bitterness she had experienced after leaving Vermont. To satisfy her driving need to know more about the father of her child, she had gone to the library and scanned through newspaper gossip pages and glossy society magazines...

Time after time she had come on photos of Sesshomaru with some gorgeous blonde babe on his arm. And that was the day when she had finally accepted how pitiful her love was, how hopelessly without foundation or any prospect of reciprocation. Then, months on, to have that impression of Sesshomaru as a heartless womanizer reinforced all over again—to watch Sesshomaru leave that London clinic to walk into another woman's arms, to live through that mortifying misunderstanding about the stewardess and then the very same day to be confronted with the horrendous real shock of Melina D'Agnolo. Was it any wonder that she was desperately insecure, afraid to trust Sesshomaru and lashing out in an attempt to protect herself from further pain?

"I won't live like this with any woman" Sesshomaru breathed with terrifying quietness. "It's like trying to fight an invisible enemy... Whatever I do you'll always be suspicious!"

As he pulled himself upright, her lashes lifted. Stepping out of the bath, Sesshomaru snatched a fleecy towel from the rail and strode back into the bedroom without a backward glance. And, just as suddenly, Rin's defensive attitude fell away. She saw a marriage which hadn't even begun now going down the drain without fanfare. She saw the chance she had been given thrown away out of proud defiance and a refusal to face her own insecurities and faults.

Sesshomaru hadn't made love to her in Vermont. She had been the one who had misinterpreted his intentions. He had had the right to pursue other relationships. His freedom had been his own and she had had no claim on him. That was the reality which she had failed to accept all these months because she had fallen in love. And what was she doing now but driving Sesshomaru away from her, in spite of the fact that he had given her no cause to distrust him?

In a panic, now that she had seen herself at fault, Rin climbed out of the bath, tugged a black toweling robe off a wall hook and hurriedly dug her arms into the too long sleeves.

"Sesshomaru...I'm sorry!" she called in advance, afraid he might already have left the bedroom beyond.

"Forget it...I need some fresh air."

Rolling up the sleeves of what she now realized had to be his robe, Rin edged apprehensively round the door and peered out. Damp silver wildly tousled hair flopping over his pale brow, Sesshomaru was zipping up a pair of skintight cream jodhpurs.

In silence, she watched him yank highly polished leather boots out of a cupboard and sink down on the chaise longue at the foot of the bed to pull them on. "You're going riding?" she muttered uncertainly. "But it's getting dark."

"Get back in your bath with your bubbles" Sesshomaru advised with brooding satire. "Immerse that little body you protect so assiduously...and leave me alone."

"Look...I said I was sorry." Rin lifted her chin. "Do I have to crawl?"

Sesshomaru lifted his head and regarded her directly for the first time since she had entered the room. She was shaken by the black brooding distance etched with clarity in his spectacular amber eyes. "How are you on disappearing?" he drawled in a tone like a silken whiplash. "Because right now, I just don't want to be around you."

Rin flinched from that brutal candor, the flush of pink in her cheeks receding to leave her paper-pale. Without warning, Sesshomaru was like a dark, intimidating stranger.

"So go back in the bathroom before I say anything else to hurt your sensitive feelings" Sesshomaru told her harshly. "I'm not in the mood to control my tongue!"

"I'm not afraid of what you have to say."

"Then why the hell are you goading me like this?" Sesshomaru splintered back at her in frustration. "I don't like being needled. I especially don't like snide comments. If you have something to say to me, have the guts to say it loud and clear, because I have no time for anything else!"

Melina loomed like the bad fairy in her mind's eye. Rin wanted to defend herself. She wanted to explain how upsetting and threatening she had found that encounter. But she had a greater fear that the mention of her own feelings in relation to yet another woman and him would be a dangerously provocative act that would simply send him through the roof. As he gazed expectantly back at her, Sesshomaru's eyes burned as gold as the flames in the heart of a fire.

"I haven't anything to say" she stated, in what she hoped was a soothing tone likely to defuse the situation.

But, disconcertingly, mat tone had the same effect as throwing paraffin on a bonfire. Sesshomaru sprang up, throwing her a blistering glance of derision. "You have the backbone of a jellyfish! I'm ashamed to be married to such a spiritless excuse for a woman!"

"Maybe...m-maybe I have more control over my temper than you have" Rin stammered through teeth clenched with restraint.

Sesshomaru slashed an imperious hand through the air in savage dismissal. "This morning I left you at the airport. I walked away from conflict. I've spent the last ten years doing that quite happily. I watched my father do that all his life with women" he grated in a raw, hostile undertone. "And then it dawned on me that I was married to you and that if I start closing you out when you anger me, what future can this marriage have?"

"Sesshomaru, I—"

"Callate! I am talking" Sesshomaru broke in with supreme contempt as he yanked a garment out of a drawer. "I find your continuing jealousy irrational and disturbing. And for someone so repressed she shrinks from even sharing a bath with her own husband, I find it even stranger that you should want to know what I might or might not have done with other women when I was answerable to nobody!"

Lips bloodlessly compressed to prevent them from trembling like the rest of her shivering, woefully weak body; Rin watched him pull on a white polo shirt and whispered shamefacedly. "I don't want to know..." She was stumbling wretchedly. "I mean —"

"Never again will I make the smallest sacrifice to make this marriage work!" Sesshomaru swore with hard emphasis. "I have my son...what else do I need? Certainly not a silly little girl who cowers at the idea of making love with me!"

"Sesshomaru, please..." Rin muttered strikingly as he strode towards the door and flung it wide.

All volatile energy and movement now, he yelled something down the corridor. On cotton wool legs, Rin followed him to the threshold and watched one of the maids coming at an anxious run.

Sesshomaru rapped out instructions in Spanish. The maid bobbed her head in instant acquiescence and then sped off down the corridor again.

Sesshomaru sent Rin a smoldering look of derision. "You need no longer fear my unwelcome approaches, esposa mia. The maid will convey your possessions to another room!"

N/A: Hello Everybody! happy late Easter! I hope you enjoyed my little Easter present for you... What will happen with poor Rin? If is not one thing, it's another!

Let me know what you think people, just one review and you will make me really happy! have a wonderful week!

XOXO

Sahora


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